Angels of Death
by S093
Summary: Jackson opened the Gate, Tabanae created the IS, the Universe cursed the Goa'uld for not reducing earth to a smocking ruin when they had the chance, and they were given plenty of chances.
1. Preface Part 1

Angels of Death

_Preface 1_

_May 2006, Cheyenne Mountain, Bottom of the Missile Silo_

Colonel Jack O'Neill watched as his troops prepared for their seconded expedition through the gate, most were veterans from what had happened a year ago. Still there were some new faces, the three female ones stood out in his mind the most. The first being a Captain Samantha Carter an astrophysicist who could hopefully fix any technical problems they ran into, he was currently referring to her as Daniel 2.0 in his mind. He hoped Daniel was still okay after a year on Abydos and god knows what else. The other two Captain Alicia Doucette and Sergeant Beth Mayors stood there in their three meter tall multi tonne armor, would not even have been here if not for the invention of one crazed Japanese scientist who had created said armor.

To say the world had been turned upside down during the first half of this year would be an understatement. Jack looked up at the glass window separating the gate room from the control room, where he could see Walter sitting in the position he had a year ago before their original expedition. Beside him stood General George Hammond the new base commander, appointed after the incident a week ago in which the gate had activated from another world and an attack came through that ended with three dead and one missing.

So it was with that situation that they were now heading back to the only other know planet with a stargate to see if they could get some answers. He had managed to convince the general to not simply nuke the place which had been the original plan, which personally Jack doubted would work even if whoever had attacked them had come from Abydos.

"Final preparations complete, dialing the gate." Walters announcement over the PA system brought him out of his musings. Looking over to his team leaders Major Charles Kawalsky and Major Louis Ferretti, "Alright Boys," and after a short pause, "and Girls, we will embarking shorty. For those of you who have done this before you know what to expect, for those of you who are new I will be brief. The foot soldiers may look like us, may act like us, but do not forget they are trying to kill you because their god told them to. No Questions. Alright Walter dial'er up."

Jack watched as the inner ring began rotating around the gate before locking in the seven symbols for Abydos. The water like vortex shot out from the gate before settling into what appeared to be a standing pool of water inside of the gate. Jack could easily make out the newcomers by their reaction alone, as they stared slack jawed in amazement at the gate. The vets were looking over the dreamy eyed newbies, smirking and chuckling amongst themselves, they new what was coming next. "And remember kiddies breath in before stepping through. Walter we clear?"

"Yes sir," came the reply.

"God speed Colonel," added the General for good measure. Jack turned up the ramp to the gate and followed his own advice about inhaling before stepping through the gate.

_Abydos_

_Ra's Pyramid_

Exiting the gate Jack came face to face with the barrels of several M16s and staff weapons, each being carried by a nervous Abydonian. A familiar shout from the back eased some of the tension.

"O'Neill." O'Neill saw Skara separate himself from the other Abydonians and approach him.

"Skara, it's good to see you again." With that the remaining tension in the temple's gate room evaporated. As the remaining members of the expedition began to arrive from the gate. "Where's Daniel?"

"A runner went to the city as soon as the Chappa'ai began to awake. Daniel should be coming back with him." Skara then tensed up immediately along with the other Abydonians, looking behind him O'Neill saw that Doucette and Mayors had come through the gate and where now looking around, heading of the potential firefight O'Neill turned to Skara.

"Don't worry they're with us," he was about to go on when Daniel came running into the chamber followed by several others.

"Hello Jack, can't say I was expecting you."

"Well if it's the same to you I really didn't think I would be coming back here. Still nice to see you again."

"Nice to see you to. Now I doubt you came all this way with this large of party if it wasn't important or that something happened."

"About two weeks back a bunch of guys dressed like Ra and his goons came through the gate and kidnapped one soldier, wounded two others and killed three."

"Well they didn't come from here, but I may have a way of figuring that out."

"Oh do tell."

"I'll show you later, right now I think I should be catching up on events back on earth." Indicating over to where Doucette and Mayors stood.

"It was an interesting year. Why don't I introduce you to the new guys and girls." Going over to where Major Carter was examining the pedestal in front of the gate. "So Captain what's your take on all this, it being your first time on another world and all." Indicating to Daniel, "Oh and this is Doctor Jackson the guy who originally figured out how to work the gate. So what are you looking at here?"

"It's the one part of the gate missing from the dig in Gizza, we didn't have one of these," indicating to the pedestal "so we had to improvise."

Daniel chose that moment to but in, "Have you tried going anywhere else other than Abydos?"

"After the return of the original expedition we tried multiple combinations using earth as the origin point. None of them worked, using the remaining thirty eight symbols there are several billion possible combinations. We tried for a few months, until other things came up."

"I'm going to assume other things happens to refer to the two armored giants you brought with you, who I might add are scaring the Abydonians."

"They're not giants, just regular people in big suits of armor," retorted Jack.

"Still scaring the Abydonians," countered Daniel

"Alright I'll explain, on the way to whatever you wanted to show me," finished Jack. "Carter will go with us, I have a feeling we'll need her brain for this." Turning to the crowd, "Kawalsky, Ferreti get your asses over here for a sec."

"Sir."

"I want you two to hold down the fort here until I get back with the Captain and Jackson."

"Yes Sir," the two Majors barked out before turning back to their men to begin issuing orders.

"Alright let's get moving."

_Abydos desert_

_In route to the temple of Ra_

"Really, that sounds kind of far fetched if you ask me." They were in the process of getting across this stretch of desert to the temple of Ra and had just finished giving him the brief on what had happened over the past year on earth, and he was now just giving his impressions on the news. "Seriously, having the ballistic missiles of all the majors powers being shot down by one unit seems a little far fetched to me. On top of the fact that said ballistic missiles were all launched simultaneously seems a little hard to swallow. Sounds like a conspiracy to me."

"You aren't the only one, thing is no one can agree on who ordered the launch in the first place. To say the world been turned upside down over night is an understatement, the balance of power has yet to settle, and that has a lot of people on edge. Then we get 'attacked' by an extraterrestrial power, things could go to hell in a hand basket quite quickly if we're not careful."

The temple or Ra like most buildings on Abydos was made of grey beige stone, the outside wasn't all that impressive compared to the pyramid where the gate was located. It was still impressive in it's own right, with it's four tall front columns and the statues of Ra spaced in between with the likeness of two warriors with their staffs crossed guarding the entrance. "Well we're here."

"Certainly hard to miss, so I take it what you want to show us is inside."

"Yes it is, follow me," Jackson indicating him and the Captain to follow.

The inside of the entrance bore semblance to the interior of the 'gate room' in the pyramid with it's high ceiling obscured in darkness and floor to ceiling pillars lining each wall. Part way down the corridor Jackson made a left turn into a side room following him with the major in tow they emerged into a cavernous room. The agronomist side of Jack's brain began immediately identifying the patterns on the ceiling and wall as constellations, and then trying to place them in the familiar patterns of earth.

"So, Jackson what are we looking at?"

"I would say star map, but I think gate map would be more accurate. This is a map of the entire gate network as Ra knew it. It is slightly out of date mind you."

"We tried to dial other addresses and none of them worked, I'm fairly certain we tried a few of the ones here as well."

"Stellar drift." Both Carter and Jackson turned to him in surprise. "Stellar drift, stars move in space, which would change their 'address'. What, I 'study' astronomy."

Leveling a finger at him Carter poke up, "we may just be able to use this to get the current addresses of the gates. Doctor how old are these."

"Well they date from when Ra was still on earth, so five thousand years give or take a few centuries."

"We just got the addresses for a few thousand worlds, we can start exploring the entire network now. Humanity will finally take to the stars."

"Captain calm yourself, remember there are still those guys who attacked earth, its not all sunshine and rainbows out here."

"Yes sir." He hated breaking her enthusiasm but she needed to be brought back to reality.

His radio chose that moment to bark to life, "Sir someones opening the gate."

"Alright we're on our way back."

"Jack we just got here, we can't just leave."

"Daniel this room not going anywhere, and I may have to talk a general out of nuking the place and you can certainly help with that."

Throwing his hands up in defeat "fine, but we do need to get these coordinates."

"We will, I'll be getting an entire team back here to start recording them all."

_Abydos_

_Ra's Pyramid_

Major Ferretti looked around at the defenses the Abydonians had erected around the gate, they weren't quite up to par with what he wanted. But all the materials and expertise to make what he wanted was back on earth, so he had to make due with what he had. He had to say that he was impressed with what had been done, sand bags were piled out from the room's pillars to give the defenders as much cover as possible while exposing any attack from the gate to overlapping fields of fire. He'd positioned Doucette and Mayors at the rear of his defenses where their higher stature would allow them to fire over the people in front of them. He wasn't expecting an attack from the gate, but it gave him something to do while he waited for the Colonel, Carter and Jackson to return. It also never hurt to be prepared, and seeing as the gate was the most likely route of attack he'd positioned his defenses accordingly.

"So do you think they'll find anything worthwhile out there."

Turning to Kawalsky he replied "I don't know, but I'm not sitting on my ass until they get back and seeing as that," pointing to the gate, "is the most likely direction of attack, I've prepared accordingly."

"I'm not arguing with you there I'm just wondering if it was worth us coming back here?"

"Who knows, someone up the ranks thinks there's something here, and it's our job to check it out." Turning back to the defenses he could pick out his soldiers easily enough from the Abydonians, there were fourteen in all plus the two majors. Add to that Doucette and Mayors and the total came up to eighteen USAF in the gate room along with another two dozen or so Abydonians under the 'command' of Skara. There were several women going amongst the soldiers handing out bowls of what he assumed to be soup. "Hey Kawalsky, doesn't that women look familiar to you."

"Now that you mention it she does, Shar'rae I think it was. The girl Jackson married."

"So he really went and did it."

"Yeah, still," Kawalskiy was cut of by a rumbling from the gate, "INCOMING."

He decided O'Neill needed to know right now before things developed, activating his radio "Sir someones opening the gate."

"Alright we're on our way back," came the reply.

The unstable vortex of the gate shot outwards before settling back into the standing pool of water inside the gate. From the pool emerged several people in metal suits, they appeared similar to the suits Ra's warriors had with several differences. First these suits covered the arms and legs of their wearers, seconded they had headpieces in the shape of snakes rather than the birds that Ra had. He was half tempted to try and open a dialogue when a man closely resembling Ra stepped through the gate. His clothing was made of red and gold cloth of some kind and there was a gold cap where the man's hair should be. He also wore some kind of golden gauntlet on his right hand. In all there were twelve of the warriors and the fancily dressed man compared to his and Skara's forty odd men. The odds looked to be in their favor.

Apophis looked over his assembled warriors and those who opposed them, his opponents dismayed him. Most weren't even carrying actual weapons! The two armored figures in the back gave him pause, he would need to deal with them personally. Their positioning confused Apophis, they were clearly melee warriors and yet they were at the back of the formation which meant they had to cross their own lines first before coming up onto his warriors. Everything was perfect he thought as a grin crept across his face. Alarm swept through the ones before him as he raised a gloved hand at on of the armored figures in the back and let loose a golden pulse that picked the figure up and tossed it against the back wall. His warriors had begun shooting staff blasts into the mass of bodies in front of them. A few staff blasts answered but most of the humans seemed interested in creating a racket rather than actually hurting his warriors.

Ferretti watched the grin spread across mister fancy pants face and knew they were in for a fight, the men around him all tensed up in response, no one dared fire the first shot. Mister fancy pants then raised his right hand and the device attached to it sent a wave of gold light right at Doucette, it caught her and her suit right in the center of the body and threw her against the back wall. That was all that was needed for everyone else in the room to open up with their own weapons. The armored warriors shot yellow blasts from the end of their staffs into the defenders, a rain of bullets with the occasional orange shot answered.

Ferretti lined one of the warriors up in his sights and let loose a stream of bullets towards the warrior only to be dismayed when they simply sparked and bounced of the armor. Shit, so that wasn't ceremonial armor, and it doesn't look like we're even hurting them, this is going to end bad unless something changes. Picking one of the warriors near the front of the formation he leaped over the sand bags in front of him and charged. The warrior didn't even realize he was there until he brought the but of his assault rifle down on it's 'head'. It didn't even flinch as far as he could tell, he was then pushed back by one arm into the pillar behind him. His head collided with the stone work with a barely audible crack, he went limp as he slid down the pillar in a daze.

He swore he saw a grenade come out of the air between two of the pillars on the opposite side of the pillar heading straight for mister fancy pants.

Watching the gold clad man take out Alicia, Beth immediately jumped to the right behind the nearest pillar, just as a yellow shot passed through the space she had just occupied, before blowing a portion of masonry out of the wall it hit. Note to self, Do. Not. Get. Hit. Leaning out from behind the pillar to get a better look, she quickly drew back to avoid a shot heading at her only for it to hit the pillar instead. Good news, their aim sucks. Bad news, they hit like a tank. From her brief view of the situation things did not look good, time to deliver some hurt.

Dashing to the next pillar up the line from the one she was at, she peaked around to the right. Seeing the gold clad man just standing there and making himself a perfect target. She brought up her grenade launcher lined up a shot and let loose. The trajectory was perfect, the grenade was heading right for the middle of his chest when less than half a meter from hit it detonated against a yellowish barrier that had not been there previously. Oh Shit! Seeing that the grenade had failed she jumped over to the next pillar in up the line just as several yellow bolts passed through the space she had occupied.

Apophis watched in satisfaction as one of his Jaffa took out a human stupid(or desperate) enough to engage him in close combat. His human host nearly defecated itself when an explosion bloomed right in front of him, his personnel shield protected them from harm. Though unharmed he was badly shaken, that had to close and completely unexpected. Time to make finish up here before they show a dangerous surprise. He began walking down the steps from the Chappa'ai towards the pedestal shaped device that would allow him to activate the Chappa'ai and return to chulak.

Kawalsky watched Ferretti go down then a grenade explode and not injure or even slow the man in gold. Who now seemed to have lost his patience with the fight and was now advancing down from the gate to the pedestal with his armoured warriors out in front of him. He was still shooting at the warriors despite it being obvious that it wasn't doing any good. It was then that he noticed Skara crouching behind the second line of sand bags. Dam, the poor kid was probably scared shitless by this, last time wasn't a close in fight like this. When the first warrior stepped past Skara as Kawalski was reloading, the boy took the barrel of his rifle in a two handed grip and swung the but at the helmet of the closest warrior. The blow itself did no damage but it clearly caught the warrior by surprise, even caught unawares the warrior still manged to disarm Skara and was going for the kill when he was stopped by the man in gold. The man lifted Skara up with his left hand and appeared to be examining him.

Enough of this, "Hey, over here!" the man in gold and the nearby warrior turned to him. Oh shit, dumb idea. He jumped to his left behind a pile a sandbags that had partly collapsed while firing at the warrior and praying that he did not hit Skara. He got behind the bags only to be lifted back up by a golden light and hurled backwards towards the end of the chamber.

Looking over the boy in his left hand he decided that the boy would be a good candidate for Klorel's host. Sparks appeared on his warriors armour and the clattering of one the human's devices could be heard further down the hall. Handing the struggling human over to the nearest warrior, he turned to face the last of the humans before raising the gauntlet on his right hand and unleashing the maximum force from the device. His hand recoiled from the force being unleashed, however he had the satisfaction of watching the remaining humans be knocked down the hall. Turning to the pedestal he inputted the code for Chulak. As the Chappa'ai activated he signalled his warriors that it was time to go, he began to walk back towards the Chappa'ai as well.

"Skara!" the shout had come from the pillars to his left, turning his head he saw a human woman standing between two of the pillars. Not wanting to let a potential host for Amaunet go, he signaled for two of his Jaffa to take the human. His glory was cut short by a whirring sound and heavy thuds coming from his right.

Beth watched as the gold clad man activated the gate and began walking back towards it when she noticed Sha're out of the corner of her eye. Shit, what's she doing here.

"Skara!" stupid girl you should have kept your mouth shut and not have been noticed by them. Two of the warriors separated themselves from the rest and grabbed Sha're. Seeing that the gold clad man's back was turned she charged at him as fast as she could, which was quite fast. The man reacted first turning towards her and bringing his right hand to face her. Not this time you don't. Before he could unleash a blast she pushed to the right with her left leg as the gold blast went rippling by to her left. Stopping her momentum with her right leg and pushing forwards once again. Closing the remaining gap, she aimed her armored fist at the man's head. Before connecting a yellow barrier appeared between her fist and the man's face. Yellow bolts forced her to fall back towards the line of pillars.

A shout from the back of the room drew the attention on the gold clad man and his warriors. She took the opportunity to charge back in and attempt to punch the man's head off.

Chasing Daniel through the pyramids corridors, Jack was becoming more worried as the sound of gunfire had cut of, and he had yet to hear anything from any of his troops. Seeing one of the IS's with it's back against the wall did not bode well for the situation in the room ahead.

"Sha're!" Daniels shout broke him out of his musings and he rounded the corner to see the other IS swinging a fist at a man dressed in gold clothing who was starring at staring as Daniel. A silver clad man was manhandling a struggling Skara through the gate, while another two of the silver clad men were dragging Sha're towards the gate. Sand and sand bags were scattered all over the floor intermixed with bodies in green combat fatigues of the US military and abydonians in a mix of combat fatigues and desert robes. He idly noted several pieces of stonework mixed in to the mess on the floor, a few of the pillars had chunks blown out of the them explaining where the stonework had come from.

As time resumed it's advance a yellowish barrier appeared between the IS's fist and the man in gold's head. The man taking note of this raised his right hand and the device on it sent a gold pulse at the IS. Which dodged to it's right before jumping back to the pillars on the right side of the room to avoid several yellow bolts from the silver clad men staffs. Skara and Skara's captor disappeared through the watery center of the gate as Jack raised his assault rifle and sent a stream of rounds at one of the silver clad men. He had to duck behind the nearest pillar to avoid a few yellow bolts that were shot at him. When he pocked back out he watched as Sha're was dragged through the gate shouting Daniel's name, and Daniel being knocked back one of the silver clad men. The man in gold walked through the gate as jack was running to Daniel, who was back on his feet and stumbling over to the pedestal.

Daniel knew they had lost, lost when Sha're had disappeared through the water center of the stargate. Stumbling over to the pedestal he committed to memory the six glowing symbols on the pedestal, if he ever wanted to see her again he would need those symbols. He felt a steadying hand on his shoulder as he began to fall over, looking over his shoulder he could see that the hand belonged to Jack. A sound to his right drew his eyes over to one of the massive armored figures that had accompanied Jack through the gate this time pull itself up to a resting position against one of the pillars. A sound at the back of the room drew both of their attention, they turned to see Carter slowly stepping into the room with eyes and mouth open in shock.

Ferretti drifted through the pain to consciousness, upon getting there he was greeted by a throbbing head. Damn I don't remember going to a bar last night, his memories decided on that moment to fill him in on what happened, so not a bar. Well seeing as I'm still alive I should figure out where I am. Opening his eyes he discovered he was just where he had slumped down after getting hit and slammed into the pillar.

Struggling to his feet while glancing around he noted that O'Neill, Carter and Jackson had returned. Stumbling over to where O'Neill was helping tend the wounded, when O'Neill noticed him moving around.

"Ferretti" and then after a pause O'Neill continued "you don't look so good."

"Don't feel to well either, did we get them?"

"No, they got away, took Skara and Sha're as well, Daniel wants to go after them right away, but" indicating the mess the room had become, "it may not turn out well for any one who goes after them."

"We have a plan at all? Or are we just going to sit back and let them go around unchallenged?"

"We don't have a plan yet, but we know where they went and Daniel found us a map of the galaxy. So the plan for now is to contact home and tell them what happened, get that map. From there who knows."

"Hammond is going to be pissed."

"Yeah, guess who has to deal with him."


	2. Preface Part 2

_Preface 2_

_May 2006, Cheyenne Mountain, Generals Office_

"Colonel Jack O'Neill," sitting across from General Hammond as he finished giving his report of what happened on Abydos, "you are recommending to me to let you go after these people when we obviously have no way of fighting against them. We have four dead and a further thirteen injured, and not one enemy fatality, that isn't even adding how many the Abydonians lost. And you're saying we should go after them?"

"Sir we have no idea what they are going to do to the people they have taken, we have to get them back."

"And just how do you plan on doing that Colonel."

"Well for starters I was thinking of getting some AP ammunition which will hopefully let us bring them down, and get some higher caliber guns. Our P-90s just won't cut it."

"I'll consider it, in the meantime you should focus on getting some rest, you and your team need it."

"Yes Sir."

_Control Room, two days later_

"Are we sure about this address," inquired Carter to the technician operating the console.

"Well as sure as we will be before actually testing it." By tacking the gate addresses located in the temple of Ra and running them through specialized and newly made programs to attempt to get the current addresses of the various gates listed in the temple. It was still a work in progress but they were making progress, though they needed to run some actual tests to make sure.

"Alright, dial it up," in the room below the inner ring of the stargate began to turn, rotating around before stopping at a predetermined place. A spike of power engaged the first coordinate.

"Chevron one encoded." The inner ring spun again, before stopping.

"Chevron two encoded."

"Chevron three encoded."

"Chevron four encoded."

"Chevron five encoded."

"Chevron six encoded."

"Chevron seven," a pause with the entire control room staff holding their breath in anticipation, "locked." The gate center lit up as the unstable vortex at the center of the gate shot forward before settling back into a standing pool. A cheer and a round of applause went up in the control room. They had done it.

_Armory  
_

"It can fire up to a ninety rounds per minute, and can be set to full-auto, three round burst fire and single shots. We have two magazine sizes for it a standard thirty round and a larger sixty round magazine. While it can't match the P-90's rate of fire it has a higher muzzle velocity and the larger caliber means it fires a larger round. Which just so happens to be a high velocity AP round." O'Neill hefted the assault rifle in his hands, it felt heavier than a P-90, but if the way the armorer was describing it, it should have a good chance of punching through the armor of their opponents. It wouldn't be a one sided fight like last time.

"How many to you have?"

"At the moment two dozen, but the problem is getting the AP rounds for them, that may take some time."

"How much time?"

"I have about two thousand on hand but getting more is going to take time. I can get few thousand more rounds inside of a week, more than that maybe a month."

"I'll take what you have now, but I have a feeling we're going to need more of these. How did we get these any way's?"

"Hammond got them for us, don't now why but he did." O'Neill looked up from the gun, that seems a little to coincidental. Further thought was cut of as another person entered the armory. Turning to the door O'Neill saw that it was the IS pilot Mayors. "Ah, Mayors got what you asked for all ready to go." Turning around the armorer went and picked up a very big box from the shelf behind him, before manhandling it around and setting it on a nearby table. Opening the box up the armorer pulled out what had to be the biggest rifle O'Neill had seen, it must have close to a meter in length and weigh a tonne.

The armorer began his explanation of the big honkin rifle. "It fires a .50 caliber round at a rate of fifty rounds a minute on full auto. It can do three round burst fire as well as single shots, the mag holds a hundred rounds. Now the AP rounds for this gun can penetrate up to sixty five millimeters of solid steel. At the moment I have twelve hundred rounds for you but only half of those are AP rounds."

"That'all do fo' nowe, can I git dis down to da firin range to try s'it."

"I'll send it down latter." Nodding to the armorer then giving a quick salute Mayors left the room leaving the armorer to return the gun to it's case.

"Can I get this one sent down to the range as well." O'Neill said holding up the assault rifle.

"Yes sir, I'll sent it down, just got some paper work that needs filing out first."

"I hate paper work," he grumbled.

"Don't we all sir." O'Neill only shook his head.

_Firing Range, Two hours later_

Standing at the end of the firing range wearing (or piloting depending on your viewpoint) the IS she had been assigned. Sergeant Beth Mayors was testing out the newest weapon to be developed for the IS. Basically a fifty caliber machine gun formatted as an assault rifle for use by an IS, it was supposed to be able to take out infantry and light vehicles as well as other IS. There were rumors of someone developing HEAP rounds for them but she would believe it when she saw it, so for now she was stuck with regular lead slugs and AP rounds. Doucette had taken one to Abydos, but never got the chance to use it. Next time that gold clad bastard wouldn't get off without injury.

Sighting down the range she waited for the first target to drop down or pop up. The first cardboard target dropped down from the ceiling, before it had even finished dropping the first lead slug tore through it's center at near the speed of sound, quickly followed by two more. Quickly switching targets as more cardboard cutouts appeared on the range, she began putting three round bursts into each of them.

After almost three minutes of firing a buzzer sounded announcing the end of the firing. Stepping out of the IS and onto the range Beth went to examine the targets. The first couple she passed had three big holes through the center area with the occasional stray shot, further back the rounds became more and more separated. Still at least two shots had gone through the center, and at the back of the range the last target to drop down had a single hole through it's 'head'. Not bad, could use some more practice, and the rate of fire could use some improvement. Still it packed quite a punch as was evident from the numerous holes in the back of the range in the new concrete walls. Hammond is going to have my head for this, and while he's at it I will recommend we get a better wall in the back here or find another firing range.

_Bottom of Missile Silo, One day later_

O'Neill was currently experiencing deja-vu as he looked over the assembled team for the rescue mission for Skara and Sha're with orders to locate a missing air force officer if possible. Standing at the base of the ramp leading to the gate behind the MALP that would be going through ahead of the team. Most of whom were carrying the new assault rifles, the rest were carrying a mix of grenade and missile launchers and any rifle they could get their hands on that could carry AP rounds. A few sniper rifles had found there way into the group of twenty five.

This time they had been divided into three distinct teams, Ferretti had the heavy weapons including the two IS, O'Neill himself had Carter, Daniel and two green hornes packing the new assault rifle. Kawalsky was leading the rest.

"Chevron seven locked." The announcement came over the PA accompanied by a swoosh out of the gate, before stabilizing into the familiar standing puddle. The MALP rolled up the ramp and through the gate. After several seconds Hammonds voice came over the PA, "You're clear to go, God's Speed."

"Alright folks most of you now the drill, for those of you who don't, pay attention to those who do. Now let's get this party moving."

_Chulak_

_Near the gate_

O'Neills first impression of this new planet was that it had tress and dirt rather than sand and sand. Kind of reminded him of his cabin up near Seattle. "Spread out and secure the area." The soldiers spread out and did their best to secure the area with what little cover was available. Spotting what was definite path through the woods, he signaled for Kawalsky and Ferretti to come over.

The pair quickly came over and spoke at the same time "Yes Sir."

"I want the two of you to secure the gate area I'm taking my squad and checking out that path over there," indicating to the path that lead towards a nearby ridge. "We'll stay in radio contact as long as possible, that being said assume they can listen in and maintain minimal radio traffic. Remember radio check in with earth every hour" And with that he signaled for his squad to follow him and he proceeded down the path.

_Two hours later_

It had been two hours since O'Neill left and he had just finished speaking with Hammond, they were planning on sending through more people to secure the area so he could take some soldiers after O'Neill. He had placed some spotters on a nearby ridge where they would have better visibility, they hadn't seen anything worth noting, yet.

His radio chirped, "Sir I've got movement along the path."

Turning to the nearby soldiers and Kawalsky, "We got movement from the path prepare to receive, but hold fire." Kawalsky repeated the order to his squad. "Lieutenant, can you get a positive ID on what's coming."

"Not yet sir." Damn he didn't know if it was O'Neill or someone else, and he would do everything in his power to prevent a friendly fire incident. "Wait, it's the Doctor. And he's not alone, running with a bunch of people. Look's like they're running from something." Great more unknown's to deal with and O'Neill still hadn't showed yet. "Got positive ID on the Colonel Sir, running with one of those silver dudes." WHAT!?

Running up to the line his men had made as Jackson approached the line in a full on sprint followed by a bunch of people dressed in what reminded him of what they had found on Abydos under Ra. "Clear a gap." The men quickly obeyed forming a hole in their formation for the new comers to go through. Turning towards the oncoming crowd, "Jackson." The doctor looked in Ferretti's direction and changed his direction to take him and the crowd through the gap in the line.

"Sir we have incoming hostiles." Shit, he could see the silver clad soldiers coming over the ridge and charging straight at his troops. He noted that some of them had stopped on the top of the ridge and were now taking potshots at the soldiers and refugees near the gate. Some of the fleeing people were hit by yellow gold bolts and went down. Other shots went wide and hit the ground and trees launching dirt, stones and splinters into the air.

"Snipers take out those guys on the ridge everyone else get the guys charging us." As he finished giving commands over the radio Jackson and the first of the people raced by Ferretti's position making a beeline for the gate. Short bursts began of fire began erupting from the staggered line of American troops, until all Ferretti could hear was the sound of rifle fire. The enemy warriors didn't even slow down. The range closed to a hundred yards.

A loud woosh came from Ferretti's right he saw a trail of smoke fly towards the enemy where it impacted near the center of the 'formations' (mobs) front line. He felt a brief surge of hope as silver clad warriors were thrown to the side where they did not get back up. His brief elation vanished when silver clad men charged through the brief smoke undaunted. He could some sparks marking where bullets bounced of the their armor.

He raised his rifle and drew a bead on one in the front line and fired a burst, he had the satisfaction of seeing the warriors head explode. So just need to go for head shots, not impossible but hard. He then drew a bead on the next warrior only to watch as that one fell after being hit in the chest. He quickly estimated the range to be about seventy to eighty yards, might come in handy latter, most likely an IS. A yellow gold bolt took down another one, he heard a scream to his right and shuddered when it quickly fell silent. The approaching warriors had begun firing their own weapons at the them while they continued to close the gap. The only reason we're still alive is that their aim is terrible, but if they get any closer it's not going to matter.

His rifle clacked, empty, ejecting the current magazine and retrieving a fresh one from one of the pouches on his belt he quickly inserted it into the rifle. Sighting down range he began to pour fire into the oncoming mob hoping for that lucky head shot. The occasional round found a head and dropped the warrior it was attached to while heavier weapons the IS used were knocking down the warriors one at a time.

The range must have been around forty yards when Ferretti saw the warrior he had sighted fall to a shot to the chest, he quickly noted the range and the drastic increase in the number of silver warrior falling. We might actually survive this. An overhead whine drew an end to those thoughts. You just had to tempt Murphy didn't you. "Incoming enemy aircraft," he shouted over the radio, as gold yellow bolts crashed into their position. A part of his mind noted that the incoming fire had seriously slackened off. "Rocket crews get ready to fire," he wanted to turn around and see how they were doing but training won out and he focused on killing the warriors in front of him. The range had dropped to around thirty yards with the rearmost warriors trying to get through the dead of their comrades while they were being peppered with bullets, he quickly glanced to the ridge where he could only see few warriors standing and firing down on the Americans position.

The enemy aircraft chose that moment to reveal themselves, flying out from behind the ridge and arcing around to the right. From the glance Ferretti stole at them they looked identical to the ones Ra had used.

Alicia heard Ferretti's notification concerning enemy air power a moment before they came out from behind the ridge circling to the right. Gold yellow bolts erupted from stubs on their forward swept wings, hurtling through the air and crashing into the ground around their position. A trail of smoke came in from her left hurtling towards the leftmost craft, the craft pulled up to evade. To late as the missile tracked it's movement and uncaring that it was on another planet slammed itself into the craft and exploded. The craft jerked upwards before beginning it's rapid descent to the ground.

In that time she had drawn her bead on the other craft, and after taking into account wind and the speed of her target she opened fire.

He had been chosen by his god Apophis to fly udajeets in his name, it was the highest honor he had ever dreamed of achieving. Now infidels had invaded his world and he would support his brothers on the ground in cleansing them. His udajeet was one of two launched to aid the jaffa on the ground. As he rounded the last ridge before the Chappa'ai, he experienced horror at the site of so many dead brothers on the ground. He would make them pay for this trespass against his god.

A plume of smoke rose from the infidels position heading towards his wing mate who pulled up to evade the plume. Only to have the plume change course to follow him. There was an explosion on the underside of his craft before the craft began falling to the ground. Enraged he drew his sights upon the largest of the infidels, a massive monstrosity of metal on two legs, and began firing the wing mounted cannons as fast as they would cycle. The abomination would be the first to fall. He watched as thing the abomination was holding let out a flash from it's pointed end.

His thoughts were cut short by a piece of shaped metal punched through the canopy and through his left eye. The udajeet continued on unfazed by the death of it's pilot in the last direction it had been pointed, at the ground.

Alicia emptied the last rounds from the clip into the approaching crescent shaped craft and watched it continue to close is unscathed. That is when she noticed that it was approaching craft wasn't pulling up and was heading straight at her. Shouting "Watch out" over her radio she bounded out of the way of the oncoming craft, while grabbing a nearby soldier and dragging him out of the way.

Ferretti swapped out the now empty clip while looking around for more targets when he heard someone yell "Watch out" over the radio an instant before the ground shook. Turning around to look behind him, he saw one of the enemy fliers down between him and the stargate. It's forward swept wings buried in the ground. Quickly turning his attention back to the battlefield he noted a lack of oncoming silver clad warriors. Turning to the ridge he couldn't find any of the warriors who had been there.

"Clear," Ferretti turned to the source of the shout and saw that it was O'Neill standing by the warrior he had returned with. "Kawalsky, Ferretti, Doucette, get over here." Obeying his superiors orders he began making his way over to O'Neill's position, passing by small burnt craters and a green garbed corpse.

Teal'c watched as the tau'ri named O'Neill called for three of his his fellows to join him here. His gaze left the tau'ri to look over those who were approaching, two appeared to be just like the majority of the tau'ri gathered about. Green garb with unfamiliar weapons in their hands. The last one was a moving metal thing in the form of a jaffa or tau'ri, with oversized proportions on the lower legs and arms. Small dust clouds formed whenever it put one of it's feet down. He had witnessed it's like on Abydos and idly wondered if this one had been there, and if so which of the two had it been?

Kawalsky kneeled down with Ferretti and Doucette by O'Neill, waiting for orders. "Kawalski take a team and secure the crash site for the other one of those," indicating to the crescent shaped craft partially impeded in the ground. "Doucette ready that one for transport back through the gate, try not to break it to much. Ferretti get back to the gate and ask Hammond for a medical team and some cutting torches, might want to throw in some heavy lifting equipment while your at it."

"Sir one question?" he decided it needed to be asked.

"Go ahead major."

"What about him sir," indicating to the bald dark tan man in chain mail armor with a weird tattoo on his forehead.

Turning to look behind him O'Neill responded with "He's friendly." Kawalsky frowned and O'Neill added "I'll tell you everything back on earth." Realizing that was all he was going to get out of O'Neill for now, Kawalsky set off to accomplish the task O'Neill had given him. Gathering up his team he headed towards the pillar of smoke marking his objective's location.

_Earth_

_Four Hours Later, Cheyenne Mountain Complex, Generals Office_

Hammond sighed as he put down the initial report he had put together following the initial debriefing. They had recovered most of two alien fighter craft that had been part of the attack as well as numerous alien weapons scavenged from the battlefield. The numerous 'refugees' that had come back through with the team would be housed on the base for the time being until someone decided what to do with them, most likely 'interviewed' for what they knew about the galaxy at large. The two prisoners that had been brought back would be 'interrogated' for their knowledge. Hammond snorted at the thought, they wouldn't be doing any interrogation on his watch, the 'Jaffa' Teal'c seemed more than willing to cooperate with his 'captors'.

Overall the mission could be deemed a failure in light of their inability to rescue Sha're and Skara, they did recover airwoman Carol Weterings, who had provided some additional information on their hew foe. Soon they would began sending missions out using the stargate and the information gathered from Abydos. If his memory of a certain incident was correct O'Neill would be at the center of it getting up to all the mischief in the galaxy along with Daniel Jackson, Samantha Carter and Teal'c. He wondered what the future had in store, then wished those thoughts away when he realized it would be answered, and it was not going to be pretty.


	3. Preface Part 3

_Preface 3, Grand Theft Ha'tak_

_June 2006, Stargate Command, Cheyenne Mountain Complex, Conference Room_

"...and that Lady's and Gentlemen is why we are shutting down the Stargate Command." O'Neill had to resist the urge to get up and punch senator Kinsey right between the eyes for all of the bullshit and hate he had spewed out against the SGC. He was complaining about how the SGC hadn't brought back any useful tech despite it's mandate, have you been to area 51 and seen the stack of staff weapons, or the two alien fighter craft currently being studied there. Or how about all the other trinkets that they had determined were of gate builder origin but were still being figured out. I know I don't know what the heck was going inside that place Ernest Littlefield had found but even he could see that it was worth their time to study it. And Kinsey just wanted to shut it down because it was costing to much.

Oh and let's not forget that Aphophis wants all dead or slaves and has ships that will render sticking our heads in the ground by burying the gate useless. And if Daniel is right, and I honestly believe him, this time, we're about to get attacked by ships that can flatten a city with a few shots. So yeah Kinsey shut down the gate, right when we need it most, and see if it saves enough money to save your skin.

Looking at Kinsey, the bane of the SGC, he could see hat the man was happy with himself, and all his political do-goodiness that is going to get us all killed. Looking around the table he saw that Hammond was resigned Daniel had left, and Doucette looked like she was plotting the best way to slug Kinsey, I hope it has her in an IS, anything might not get through.

_Later, Generals Office_

"General you can't let him do this, without the SGC we have absolutely no way to protect earth against any kind of attack from the Goa'uld. Without we are absolutely defenseless." Doucette was pleading with Hammond to try and keep the SGC operational, surely they could bring enough people around to keep the funding coming.

"I'm sorry Captain but there is absolutely nothing I can do. The decision has already been approved by the president. In two weeks the gate is going to buried." Damn it why couldn't anyone see the obvious stupidity of this. It was like covering yourself in stake sauce before going out in the woods when there were bears and wolves around. "Teal'c what can I do for you."

"If it is true that the people of this planet will no longer carry out the fight against the Goa'uld, then I wish to leave so that I may continue to fight." You know what screw this world and all it's backstabbing politics, she agreed with Teal'c, if they weren't going to continue to fight then she would find someone else who would.

"I'll do what I can to have you're departure arranged, and for what's it worth Good Luck out there."

"Thank you Hammond of Texas, may your people see the error of this action and join the fight again." He took a slight bow before turning around and leaving the office.

"I wonder if I can loin him."

"I'll see what I can do on that front." She blushed slightly when she realized she had though out loud. Giving a salute then turning and leaving the office she began making her way to the mess for some food.

Watching Doucette leave Hammond sighed to himself, he couldn't blame them for wanting to go out and explore the galaxy and fight the Goa'uld, heck he would consider going himself if he were twenty or thirty years younger. But he was too old to go out galvanizing across the galaxy, he would just stay here and retire to spend time with his granddaughters, try to keep them out of trouble. Looking down at the messy pile of paperwork that needed to shut down the SGC he half considered dragging Kinsey in here to help him with it. After all he was the one shutting down the SGC so he should at least help with the process.

He was interrupted again from his work by a sharp knock at his door. "May I come in General."

"Come in," the man entered and Hammond studied him, about five feet tall with short gold brown hair and an air of arrogance about him. Most likely on of Kinsey's goons. "Have a seat," after the man had seated himself, his name tag identified him as Dr. Rodney Mckay, he continued "How may I help you Mr. Mckay."

"General I am here on behalf of the Canadian government and prime minister Stephen Harper. As the United States is discontinuing it's Stargate program the Canadian government wishes to know if it could acquire the gate."

_Three days later_

_Men's locker room_

"I can't believe they wouldn't even let Teal'c leave. Threat to national security my ass, they were planning on not even giving a dam about the rest of the Galaxy, and besides his wife and kid are out there waiting for him." Jack was fuming, that bastard Kinsey was doing everything he could to be a jerk, denying Doucette the right to leave was one thing but forcing Teal'c to stay against his will away from his family was altogether just plain being an ass hole. Threat to national security my ass, nothing Teal'c knows about earth's defenses if the Goa'uld decide to invade, they'd simply wipe out any resistance from orbit and be done with it. Goa'uld were very straight forward when it came to war, they wouldn't bother with subterfuge if it came to an invasion.

Daniel simply shrugged his shoulders, "they aren't going to change they're minds anytime soon, and I think that by the time they do think about it it will be to late." With that Daniel grabbed the now full kit bag and dragged it out of the room. No one seemed to be trying to do anything to try and stop the full scale invasion of earth.

"Ah to hell with, I'm not sticking around this planet waiting for an invasion that I know is coming and that there is nothing I can do here to stop it." Making sure he was alone in the room he grabbed a combat vest and stuffed it in his bag, with any luck he would be long gone by the time any one noticed the missing vest.

_Later_

He had acquired a Zat from one of the labs and was now making his way towards the control center to activate the gate. He hoped his time watching Walter dial the gate would allow him to open the gate to the address Daniel had brought back.

He brought the Zat up when he heard voices from down the hall past the control room, most liely the ready room. He quickly slowed down and try to listen in on the conversation, it was late at night and no one should be down hear at this time. And yet there were clearly several distinct voices coming from down the hall. O'Neill went over what he had, a Zat, two grenades and a block of C4 with detonator. While he could get to the control room without passing the voices, activating the gate would certainly draw their attention.

A figure stepped out of the room out of the room and headed towards O'Neill. He pressed himself as close to the wall as he could and tried to get a better look at the figure. It was Ferretti, in full combat gear with a SGAR slung over a shoulder and one in his hands. "Colonel I know you're there so come on out." With a sigh O'Neill separated himself from the wall, Zat heald at the ready.

"How did you know I was here?"

Ferretti shrugged his shoulders and replied "Teal'c heard you coming down the hallway." O'Neill rolled his eyes, he hadn't counted on Teal'c watching the gate, he swore the Jaffa warrior could hear everything on the base and just kept it a secret.

"So I take it you're here to stop me."

"Stop you from running of like an idiot alone into enemy territory with only a Zat, yes. Stop you from leaving through the gate, no. You're not the only one who sees what needs to be done Jack." O'Neill was now paying compete attention to Ferretti, the guy didn't use his first name unless it was serious. "Here," taking the SGAR in his hands and tossing it to O'Neill, "you might want this." Catching the rifle with one hand, while pocketing the Zat. He then took out the current magazine to check how many rounds were in it, a full thirty rounds. "Follow me."

Ferretti with the second SGAR now in his hands lead O'Neill into ready room. In the room were the members of SG-1, SG-2, SG-3, Syler and Walter. "Quite a gathering you got going on here, so what did I miss."

"We were just going over the plan we have for getting out of the SGC and to this staging area that Jackson found."

"Don't leave me in the dark what's going on?"

"Syler and Walter are going to start the gate activation from the control room, we're using a quick dial program that some of the eggs heads thought up." Walter sits down at the control console and plugs in a USB stick into the computer, several keystrokes later the gate begins to activate. "They're then going to erase the gate log for the last twenty four hours." Syler moving over to the side console sets the timer for ten minutes after completion before he and Walter exit the control room through a side door.

"Once the gate activates we're sending through a small recon MALP to confirm that we're not going to die the second we step through." The unstable vortex erupts from the gate, once it resides a small four wheeled robot enters the event horizon. "Once it confirms we're green we're going in."

"MALP shows all clear on the other side, let's go!" Kawalsky lead the way flanked by other three members of his team. The two IS followed next, followed by Ferretti and the remainder of his team. O'Neill watched them go before stepping through the gate himself.

_Unknown_

O'Neill stepped into gold covered room, Egyptian hieroglyphics covered the walls witch tapered towards the ceiling. Braziers hung from the walls providing light, there was an open door directly in front of them revealing a corridor in the same style as the room they were in. The design was definitely Goa'uld.

Looking behind him he saw the gate resting on a staircase shaped like so many across the galaxy, just made in some sort of black metal. There was a second open door placed in the rear corner of the room of to O'Neill's right. On the other side were what appeared to be boxes.

A tremor went through the room, the assembled company, brought there weapons up and crouched into ready positions. The silence held for about a minute after the tremor passed, broken by Teal'c.

"Someone approaches." O'Neill strained, but he could hear the steady falling of metal shoes on the floor.

"Which way?" Teal'c merely pointed his staff at the door leading into the hallway. "Everyone into that back room, IS first." The soldiers quickly filed into the room in an orderly fashion. O'Neill and Teal'c were still not in the room when the sound of feet was right beside the door. Before he could think, Teal'c had grabbed him and dragged him down behind the gate.

Glancing to the other door O'Neill saw Ferretti in the door way with a look of concern on his face, signalling that he and Teal'c were okay, he did his best to listen in on what was happening in the rest of the room.

The heavy footfalls had stopped, but there were still some softer footfalls approaching the gate. Looking up O'Neill could see the upper part of the gate, he didn't risk peeking over. A silver-grey orb was placed in the center of the gate by a pair of pale hands. The hands withdrew but the orb remained stationary.

Apophis's voice rang out in the chamber. "Rise my son, Klorel." Skara was hear, damn it, we don't need any complications for this.

From his position Ferretti watched as the boy who had once been Skara rose from his bow to regard the orb in the center of the gate. He was garbed in a burgundy red robes with gold trim, his black hair held back by gem encrusted gold crown.

Apophis continued his speech. "Once we leave the dark we shall smite down the upstart Tau'ri and bring there world into our domain. The slaves of tau'ri will provide us with the labor to build a thousand Ha'tak. The conquest of their world will provide me with the power to become the supreme system lord, and Rule Over The GALAXY!"

"Yes father." Klorel dipped his head in a short bow before standing up, turning around and leaving the room, his guards followed suit. The servant who had brought in the orb retrieved it and left.

Slowly retrieving a periscope from his vest Ferretti inched it out the doorway and surveyed the room. With the exception of O'Neill and Teal'c crouched behind the gate the room was empty. Replacing the periscope Ferretti eased himself out into the gate room while O'Neill and Teal'c stood up.

"Well that was close, Colonel any ideas?"

"Nothing at the moment, Teal'c?"

"We are most likely aboard a Ha'tak class. I do not know how long it will take us to reach earth. Apophis is most likely aboard another, beyond that I do not know."

'can you fly this ship?"

"Unfortunately, I am not trained in the operation of a Ha'tak class vessel. There are also several hundred warriors onboard along with members of the pharaoh's guard."

"Great, not only can we not fly this ship, we have to contend with several hundred Jaffa warriors."

"On the contrary O'Neill, in the corridors inside of a Ha'tak your weapons and tactics should be effective against the warriors onboard. I may not know how to operate the entire vessel, however I am able to operate weapons on a Ha'tak." O'Neill was looking at Teal'c with a thoughtful expression on his face.

_Later_

Kawalsky made his way down the gold walled corridor, Zat held at the ready. Heading towards the royal chambers, where the communications orb was located when not in use. His teams objective was to secure it to prevent anyone from warning Apophis to give O'Neill's harebrained scheme a chance of working.

Approaching the room Kawalsky stuck a periscope around the corner, no guards outside the room. Skara was elsewhere. He clicked his radio once before proceeding into the room.

Like the hallway outside the room was devoid of occupants. Unlike the hallway outside the room wasn't covered in gold and black. Red and gold tapestries occupied the walls, a throne sat in the center of the room. Near the back was another door, but upon a stand to his left lay the orb sitting on a scarlet red sheet of what looked like silk.

Grabbing a block of C4 from his vest and placing it next to the orb, he set the timer for two minutes. Signalling his men he quickly exited the room his men advanced as quickly as they could without giving themselves away.

Bra'tac observed the Tau'ri leave Klorel's room in a hurry, evidently it was unwise to be near his pharaoh's room. Until something exploded inside the room, then it was most likely safe to enter. He had quickly discovered the Tau'ri presence aboard, after trailing this group once they left the room that housed the Chappa'ai. They definitely had a plan, what he did not know, but it would need to be learnt soon. He hopped whatever plan they had would not ruin the one he had, it had taken him a lot of effort to be appointed first prime of Klorel. Assured that the group he had followed had accomplished what they set out to do, he quickly began making his way to the pel'tac.

O'Niell advanced cautiously through the gold lined corridors towards the ships bridge, or as Teal'c called it the Ha'tak's pel'tac. What a mouthful. They had yet to encounter any guards on duty and it had set O'Neill on edge, not that he minded not having to fight his way to get to the bridge. His radio chirped once, Skara was not in his room. O'Niell's mind jumped to the next place they could be, the bridge. They also had less than three minutes until every Jaffa on the ship was aware of their presence.

Speeding it up a little, O'Niell stuck his head out from the corner for a quick glance to reveal, yet another empty hallway. Turning the corner and heading down the hallway O'Neill hopped Teal'c wasn't leading them in circles. Several uneventful and stressful corners and corridors later Teal'c nodded to O'Niell indicating that the bridge was just up ahead, about a minute to go. Carefully extending the periscope O'Neill couldn't see any guards outside of the bridge, this had to be the laziest security he had ever seen.

Making his way to the entrance to the bridge and taking a look with the periscope he noted at least a dozen guards arrayed along the sides with two flanking Skara. Beyond him there was a triangular window which showed them in what looked like a blue and black tunnel. Returning the periscope to his vest O'Neill drew his Zat. Going over the motions in his, he signaled the rest of his team to be ready.

He held up his hand with three digits pointing up. Lowering one at a time, when the last one dropped he stepped into the opening of the doorway, took a split second to aim the before putting a stream of blue lighting between Skara's shoulder blades.

O'Neill saw Skara start to collapse blue lighting dancing over his body, as O'Neill stepped to the other side of the doorway. A rumble passed through the floor when he arrived on the other side.

Alicia watched as O'Neill fired a Zat blast through the doorway before he ducked to the other side, a dozen yellow bolts flew through the doorway and impacted against the opposite wall. The floor shook a bit, right before the first warrior ran through the doorway and turned towards O'Neill. He received a bolt of yellow energy to the back from her triple staff weapon mount. The first was still falling to the floor when three others exited the bridge, they were cut down by gunfire and plasma before they could get off a shot.

The next group displayed some brain power as they stuck their staff weapons out the doorway and began blind firing. A grenade hit the far side of the doorway before exploding and the staffs dropped away. Alicia charged forward to the doorway before turning and running into the bridge, she ran over an unlucky Jaffa who was trying to get back on his feet from the grenade.

Firing as fast as the unholy amalgamation of three staff weapons and some machinery could fire, she started from her left and began working over the Jaffa in the bridge as the rest of the team flooded in to aid her. Staff fire slammed into her flimsy shields dropping them in four hits, the next bolt hit her shoulder blowing away the plating and burning her flesh. A second bolt slammed into her chest and she fell over, pain washed through her chest as her vision went black.

Samantha watched Alicia go down to the Jaffa, the four remaining Jaffa backed up against the wall to right of the doorway. Semiautomatic fire poured onto the remaining warriors, the first one went down as holes appeared in his chest plate. The next was brought down in a similar fashion, a grenade finished of the remaining pair, but not before one of the soldiers took a staff blast to the chest.

With the immediate fighting over she moved over to where Alicia had fallen. Removing the IS's helmet she noted that Alicia's eyes were closed but she could feel air moving over her hand. She was alive but unconscious. The O'Neill had closed the eyes of the downed soldier and was pilfering him of equipment, he pulled out two grenades, some magazines and some C4 with detonators. After he was done removing equipment O'Neill moved the body of to the side before walking over to her.

"How she doing?" He asked indicating to Alicia.

"Alive, but out of it."

"Alright, Teal'c, Lorhne help me and Carter move her of of to the side." The two men walked over, each person grabbing a limb, we moved over to a part of the bridge that was clear of bodies. After Alicia was moved the remaining six people began setting up defenses for the inevitable counterattack. She and Teal'c went over to the central console to begin figuring out how to control the weapons.

Bra'tac listened for the footsteps coming from the pel'tac, one heavy set and five lighter sets. He was pretty sure that this party had contained eight members, casualties? Either way they had taken Klorel and the pel'tac, ensuring that it would take time to organize an effective counterattack. And if he was sure of the objective of the other party, then the Tau'ri removed all forms of communication that could be used to warn Apophis. Evidently his old student had applied the knowledge that he had beaten into him well.

Ferretti looked around the control room for the reactor, two guards had been Zated then tied up with their hands attached to their feet. Ferretti had originally begrudged O'Neill for taking half his team including the two IS. But now he didn't regret leaving the IS with O'Neill, they probably would have alerted the guards just moving. As it was the four man team Ferretti had lead had managed to Zat the two guards before they were even aware of their presence. Unless someone checked up on these two their actions would most likely go unnoticed.

O'Neill's insane scheme was actually working, now they just had to survive the eventual counter attack. And Apophis.

Kawalsky lead his team through the twisting corridors of the ship towards what he hoped was the bridge. They passed the occasional groggy Jaffa who were quickly Zated to prevent them from raising the alarm.

Turning the last corner he was picked up by a massive arm that could only belong to an IS, or so he hopped. Meeting the IS in the eyes for a second, she then lowered him to the ground, nodding once to the IS he passed a black haired soldier before continuing through the doorway and into the bridge.

Unlike the unblemished corridors he had been going through until now the walls of the bridge were filled with poch and scorch marks. Teal'c and Carter were hunched over a central console, while O'Neill and Jackson watched the doorway. Dead warriors were piled against one side of the room, their weapons policed. Klorel lay bound against one wall, another soldier lay on the grond a black scorch mark on his chest. The second IS lay by the wall as well scorch marks on it's chest and shoulder.

"Hell of a fight Colonel."

"Yeah, one dead, one injured. Hell we took'em by surprise and they still managed to get back at us. We would have been screwed if staff weapons could fire faster. Enough of that have your men take a quick break, then join the defense out front." O'Neill then walked up to Kawaslky. "Are they stirring yet."

"Some of them are but it's just a few here and there, so we should have some time."

"Alright, we're going to hold here. With any luck they can work the ships weapons." O'Neill indicated to Teal'c and Carter. "I'll check up on Ferretti to see how he's doing."

Tal'zoreac of Chulak paced around the barracks he and his warriors had been given, there still had been no word from the pel'tac. The bodies of several fellow warriors had been found in the corridors, killed by blasts from a Zat'tecniel. There had been an explosion in the Pharaoh's room, and the pel'tac refused to answer his hails. He feared the worst, someone had boarded this Ha'tak and attempted to kill his god. He vowed they would pay, he would make them pay. He would march on the pel'tac, if the enemy was there he would slay them, if it was his god he would apologize and pray for forgiveness in this matter.

"Brothers, I have come to the conclusion that someone has attempted to kill Klorel. As warriors in his service we must kill these scum, they have taken the pel'tac, it there we will march. To cleanse this holly structure of their presence." The roar of approval from his fellows was heartwarming.

_Later_

_On approach to pel'tac_

He counted ninety four warriors, who would aid him in retaking the pel'tac, the attackers would be put down like the scum they were for daring to attack his god. He had sent scouts forward to identify the attackers and to insure that he was not launching an attack against his own god. He now awaited word from them.

A score of minutes passed.

Then a half hour passed, they should have returned by now, they are dead. At least I know it is not my god I face.

Signalling the rest of the warriors, he began advancing towards the pel'tac.

Daniel helped Teal'c drag the latest Zated warrior over to the growing pile of Jaffa. They had started coming in ones and twos a short while ago before the flow cut off. Jack figured they were scouts, Daniel left military tactics to others. They had fashioned two short walls out of staff weapons and zip-ties. Those would provide some measure of cover to the people behind them. He only wish he knew how long before they exited FTL, Carter said several years. Jackson had seen Ra's yacht, he doubted it took years to dross between the stars, and that had been for pleasure cruising, this was a warship. It was undoubtedly faster.

Any further thoughts were cut off by the sound of armored feet approaching very quickly. Scooping up his rifle, he exited the bridge and joined the soldiers manning the barricade. There couldn't have been more than two meters between the two barricades. And you couldn't fit many people on the length of a staff weapon. As such two men knealed right behind the barricade with a third standing over him. Their IS stood in the doorway with Jack, Teal'c and himself, Jack in kneeling in front Teal'c to the left and Daniel to the right.

The first warrior came around the corner to his left, and was knocked down by Zat blasts, two more then appeared around the corner, one of them got out a shout of Tau'ri, before the pair was taken out. Jack dropped the Zat he was holding before bringing his assault rifle up, but not in time for the trio that rounded the corner their staffs level. Zat blasts knocked the first two out, but the third got of a shot as he went down, witch went high. Jack had his rifle ready as a staff and a head poked around the corner, which then exploded as a bullet hit the warriors head.

The remaining soldiers had switched to their rifles as a hoard of Jaffa rounded the corner and ran right into fire from four rifles, a staff weapon and the massive gun carried by the IS. Daniel alternated his sight between the onrushing hoard, the six people fending it of, the other three who had ducked down, and the far corner. A block of C4 sent warriors flying around the corner an instant before several warriors rounded the corner to his right, rifle fire brought down two of them before they could do anything, another three fell as they brought their staff weapons down to fire on the defenders.

His rifle clacked empty, and while he was changing clips, a bloc of C4 went of sending more Jaffa flying. He had just finished bringing the rifle up with the fresh clip, when a hot burning sensation erupted across his right chest.

Beth heard the explosion on her right and began shifting her aim to bring the LAR to bear on the Jaffa charging in from her right. As she was turning she saw Jackson go down from a hit to his chest. Before he had even hit the floor, she opened fire with the LAR sending supersonic rounds flying at the Jaffa trying to push around the corner. While her fire wasn't exactly accurate, sheer volume prevented the Jaffa charging form that side to get a good shot of with their unwieldy weapons.

A blast of gold flying across her vision reminded her that she had two directions to worry about, not just one, and Alicia wasn't there to support her. O'Neill had pressed himself up against the far wall pouring fire into the warriors coming from the left. When she was looking to the right she noted that one of the soldiers there was on the ground, his face a twisted black mess. Anger flowing through her she opened fire.

Her fire lasted about three more seconds before the magazine was empty, rather than reloading she hurled the empty weapon down the corridor. It looked almost comical the way on of the warriors tried to catch it, only to be knocked back into his comrades and over the corpses that had begun to accumulate. Drawing her backup weapon, fifty millimeter grenade launcher she noted that the speed at which the Jaffa came around the corridor had dropped. She began bouncing grenades around the corners to keep their heads down. She was facing towards the right, when a golden bolt slammed through her depleted shields and into her back. The armor kept out most of the blast, but with it's batteries gone the armor locked up turning her into a piece of modern art, that was getting shot at.

Over half of his warriors were dead and they were still no closer to reaching the pel'tac. Damn the cursed Tau'ri scum and their vile weapons, at least more Jaffa were joining him with every passing minute. One of them even had the presence of mind to take several Tok'kal from the armoury, he would make sure to have the warrior rewarded for his actions. He had cut off the attacks in preparation for what he would do next. He had half expected the Tau'ri to come charging when he pulled back, they didn't. They seemed content to stay and let him come to them, that would be their undoing.

Sending up Jaffa to the corners then having them thrust their staffs around the corners and fire on to the Tau'ri. They wouldn't be able to see what they were shooting at but that didn't matter, all they had to do was keep the Tau'ri from moving while the next part of his plan went into action. Holding the Tok'kal he armed it and prepared to throw it around the corner when the Jaffa beside him went down. A staff blast from behind? He turned his head around to see five advancing serpent guards shooting down his warriors. He had had twenty warriors with him, but they had caught him between them and the Tau'ri. A golden-yellow bolt hit him square in the chest.

Bra'tac watched through his helm as he and his four warriors slew the last of the Jaffa loyal to Klorel in this corridor. He and his four warriors dedicated to the freedom of all Jaffa from the false gods. Moved down the towards the other corridor to where the remainder of the loyalists were. Rounding the bend, the Jaffa here had begun there charge. Using the visor to aim he placed staff blasts into the backs of the Jaffa. The rearmost fell to his well placed shots, those in the middle had begun to turn around, when he and his fellows cut them down. The Jaffa leading the charge were unaware of his attack, but those directly behind them turned around and were bringing their staffs to bear. Only three got of shots, of those only one found it's mark. The warrior to his immediate right fell down, his chest scared black.

Sprinting around the corner he quickly leveled his ma'tok staff at one of the two remaining warriors and fired. The blast caught the warrior in the back, as Teal'c brought the end of his staff down on the other warriors head.

Surveying the scene in front of him while retracting his helm and bringing his staff upright. Two Tau'ri were standing, O'Neill and a female Tua'ri, Carter if he remembered correctly. On of their machines stood in the doorway to the pel'tac, unmoving. He only counted eight Tau'ri, Teal'c and one of their machines, against a hundred warriors. Now of those ten only three looked as though they could fight at all.

"Master Bra'tac," Teal'c did a short bow before clasping arms with his old master. "We are most thankful for your assistance." The other Tau'ri was checking on the their fallen while his warriors stood at corner.

"Great timing with the rescue there, I take it you took out the other group as well." O'Neill indicated behind him towards the other corridor.

"Yes I dealt with both groups of warriors, we caught them from behind, and routed them. But you O'Neill, managed to hold against odds I would have considered impossible a year ago."

"Yeah thanks, listen you wouldn't know how to operate this ship would you. Teal'c and Carter have some figured out but it would be easier if we had someone who knows what there doing."

"You have a plan then?"

"Indeed we do master Bra'tac."

_Later_

_Outskirts of Sol system_

A blue tear opened in the black of space disgorging a gold triangular pyramid ringed with black works. A seconded later a second identical vessel appeared, almost immediately yellow bolts leaped from the second one impacting the first a second later blowing chunks of the vessel. After taking several dozen yellow bolts the first vessel shattered sending pieces of the vessel scattering across space along with atmosphere and several bodies.

_Pel'tac_

"I will admit, it never had occurred to me that I could attack Apophis as we left hyperspace. I had intended to launch an attack using this Ha'tak against the one Apophis was on which would cause Apophis to believe Klorel was attempting to kill him. The ensuing battle would leave them vulnerable to the craft of your world. I was not expecting you to appear here and take control of the vessel, I suppose it is just as well that I did not. The thought might have occurred to others. As it was we managed to gain control without fighting of the entire contingent of warriors aboard and risk them warning Apophis." The Tua'ri had lost one of their warriors taking the pel'tac and another four defending it. He had used the sarcophagus to revive two of them and the warrior he had lost. The rest sported a variety of injuries gained during the fighting.

He had been most surprised to learn that the Tua'ri's fighting machines were in fact armor worn by certain of their females. He supposed that the machines were actually armour should not have surprised him given how they were shaped, but he did wonder why only females used it. Would it not have been better to have both males and females using it?

"The question is what we will do now, no matter how much I would like to go and land on earth, in front of Kinsey's house would be a good place. There are several complications with that idea. Any thoughts."

"Well what's the nearest planet with a gate aside from Abydos?" The one named Kawalsky asked, I did not fully understand why O'Neill was reluctant to simply bring the Ha'tak to his world. But it was his world and there may be things I am unaware of that could be influencing his decision.

"What about P33-0G6, it's fairly close and I know the gate address for it." Carter suggested. I had quickly learned that Tau'ri females were just as capable as their male counterparts, something many learnt to late. And Carter was smarter than most males of the Tau'ri I had met. "SG-5 visited it about two months ago, it has...five moons." Why the number of moons a world had was important escaped me but it meant she knew the address and I could take us there.

"Alright we'll head there then inform the SGC." Walking over to the console I opened up navigation as Carter put in the address. Once that was done I engaged the Ha'tak's hyperdrive.

_One day later_

_SGC, Control room_

"Haven't the teams that were sent out found anything yet?" An agitated Kinsey was pacing around the control room, technicians were doing what they could to stay out of his way. Something he wished he could do at the moment. Ever since it was discovered that O'Neill had left with SG one through three with both IS assigned to SG-3 he had become increasingly agitated.

"I'm sorry senator but we have yet to receive word from any of our teams, and the address Jackson brought back hasn't worked." The senator turned back to the stargate, his teeth grinding back and forth, unable to keep his frustration. He only hoped O'Neill had the sense to stay away from earth until he got something big enough to protect him from the senator for 'stealing' two IS.

"Unscheduled offworld activation." Walter said as the sirens began going off. Security teams move into the gate room as the stargate activated. Once it settled back the iris spun closed. "Receiving MALP telemetry." O'Neill's face appeared on the monitor above his head, I hope you have something that will stop you from getting court marshaled.

"O'Neill," he cut in before Kinsey could say anything, "you have stolen equipment from the American Air Force, as well as disobeyin-" Kinsey cut him off.

"YOU STOLE TWO IS UNITS FROM THIS BASE, return them immediately and surrender yourself and I might think about reducing your sentence." Kinsey screamed into the microphone, O'Neill for his part just looked bored.

Walter looked up at him covering his microphone. "Sir it's the MALP we sent to P33-0G6."

Before he could reply O'Neill began talking back to Kinsey. "Is that you on the other end Kinsey, is all you care about your own reputation rather than the fate of the world." Kinsey started to respond but was cut of. "You made this big speech about how the SGC had failed to bring back anything useful. Well how about this," O'Neill moved out of the camera's line of sight to reveal a massive gold pyramid with black extensions around it's base. "A fully functioning spaceship. Oh by the way it was on it's way to attack earth. So is that enough for ya, you greedy politician."

Hammond turned to Kinsey, the man's mouth hung open, his eyes starring at the screen in disbelief. After this, Hammond didn't think Kinsey would be able to press the court marshal. "O'Neill do you require anything?"

"Yeah, a medical team along with some extra troops to finish securing it."

"They're on their way." With that the stargate shut of, Hammond turned and left Kinsey where he stood still starring at the screen. Maybe, just maybe they could survive the Goa'uld.


	4. Preface Part 4

_Preface 4, Loans_

_SGC, Control room, January 2011_

Sirens blared as the stargate came to life, a blue light emitting across the back wall behind the gate with the iris closed. "Receiving Tok'ra IDC sir. It's Jacob Carter." Walter informed Hammond who had just came down from his office.

"Open the Iris." Walter moved his hand over to the palm scanner, a second later the iris spun open revealing a pool of standing water. It wasn't really water, but that is what it looked like to everyone who had seen it.

A moment later Jacob Carter stepped through the gate, garbed in the beige brown robes of the Tok'ra.

"So what do the snake-heads want from us now?" O'Neill had joined them in the control room, even after several years of working with them O'Neill still did not trust the Tok'ra. While the general shared some of the concerns O'Neill had, he believed the man was taking it to far. Probably a mix of Carter being Jolinar's host and Skarra's death from Klorel.

"Well lets find out." He headed to the stairs that would take him down a level not bothering to see if O'Neill was following. It was probably for the best that the man stayed behind, he had a habit of creating diplomatic incidents.

Entering the gate room, Jacob turned to him and held out his hand. Hammond took it. "welcome to earth ambassador, what brings you here?"

"I am here on behalf of the Tok'ra council, we have a request for you."

_Later, Conference room_

"General you cannot actually be thinking about accepting this request, I mean we just got that new model Ha'tak over Zeus's dead body. It was so new it had yet to become tarnished by a snake-head living in it."

"Actually Colonel I agree with the Tok'ra on this one, and I think the president will approve as well." The Colonel rolled his eyes, he clearly didn't approve. "That being said, the Ha'tak Zeus had was a new Sokar refit, we won't be using it for this plan." O'Neill brightened up a bit and Jacob just looked confused. "While I don't think the council's plan will work without a Ha'tak or similar. O'Neill why don't you take the ambassador over to the Gamma site so he can pick out a ship to use. I'll forward the plan up to the president and the joint chiefs with my recommendations. I don't see them rejecting it, the information provided by the Tok'ra is to valuable to lose."

O'Neill seemed content, probably the chance to show up the Tok'ra was sitting well with him. Jacob did not question why the plan had to get approval from a higher power, he understood how the US military worked. But he was thoughtful.

_Later, Gamma Site_

Selmack and Jacob looked over the pyramids jutting into the sky. They had emerged from the mountain expecting that the Tau'ri may have acquired an additional Ha'tak or two. They had not expected there to be at least a dozen gold pyramids dominating the skyline. Once again the Tau'ri had been underestimated. Most looked to be relics from the time of Ra, but a few were definitely the new Ha'tak's that had begun being built. Larger and carrying more ma'tok cannons then their older brethren, along with better shields and faster hyperdrives.

_I suggest we take a newer model, we could simply say it is the one from Zeus and the rest of the council will not question it. There is definitely someone leaking information to the system lords. As long as they continue to underestimate the Tau'ri we will hold the advantage. If they learn that the Tau'ri are building a fleet of their own, they will act. Even the protected planets treaty will not be able to keep them back. _Agreed, I even believe certain members of the council will find ways to bring this information to the system lords. Their is to much fear of powers not under our control. _We are in agreement then? _Yes.

"O'Neill, I believe I have found a vessel that will suit our needs." Pointing towards one of the newer vessels. O'Neill rolled his eyes. "It looks the most like the one Zeus had, so no one will beware that it is a different ship, that way you can keep your little stash here to yourself." O'Neill had put a frown on, his eyes full of thought, he was judging them.

_Big Honkin Space Gun(s)_

_Gamma site, Mountain Base, October 2012_

O'Neill, Teal'c and Daniel were lounging around in the cafeteria while Carter was providing 'scientific insight' to a bunch of politicians from the US, Russia and Canada. Really she was just translating into laymens terms what some of the tech they had did. He had managed to convince Hammond to have himself not interact with the politicians, interestingly enough the man had agreed, though he suspected it was because the man had wanted Jack as far away form the politicians as possible. That worked fine for him. He would have done away with politicians entirely, if they had not happened to control the money witch the SGC and are fifty one needed to operate. Hailey had run off somewhere, most likely the labs.

"I swear they had absolutely no interest in what I have found concerning the Ancients, none. They built the entire gate network and if what I've found is correct, they had intergalactic capabilities."

"Don't feel so bad Daniel, there politicians, unless it can get them money or votes they don't care."

"Indeed, Daniel Jackson the 'politicians' I have encountered during my time on earth have only been interested in satisfying there own wants. Similar to the Goa'uld."

"Well I'm going down to see them firing the Big Honkin Space Gun, you guys coming."

"Jack we are not calling it that!"

"Why not? It sounds better than 'plasma cannon', and besides it's big and a space gun. It's the perfect name for it."

"Indeed, it is a name that describes it's function, as such it is fitting." Daniel just shook his head, and headed to the counter to get another drink.

_Later, Firing Range_

Carter was just finishing up the explanation for the plasma projector before leading the group over to the Big Honking Space Gun. The weapon itself was twenty meters long two and a half tall and two meters wide. It was currently pointed at the remains of a Ha'tak, it had been acquired by SG-1 rather than SG-3 and had come severely damaged. Someone had the bright idea to use it to test weapons against, then fill in the holes with rock, which surprisingly offered a fair amount of protection from weapon impacts.

The massive gun had been previously been tested against this Ha'tak, in a test firing that would be repeated today. As had it's previous incarnations.

"The cannon itself is a mixture of human, Goa'uld and Asgard technology. It is at its core a large plasma weapon similar to those that are being employed by IS development companies on earth. There are several things that makes this design stand out, first it sheer size makes it the largest plasma weapon constructed by earth. The next point are the magnetic coils along the barrel that accelerate the plasma to almost point one percent the speed pf light, as well as giving it rotation which helps it go through armor and shields. The biggest difference for this weapon would be the use of super light neutronium to create gravitational fields that shape the plasma from a simple ball into a more ovoid shape. Using the gravitational fields the density a various parts of the plasma can be changed to create an 'armor shield piercing plasma round'. It takes a while to build up the charge to shoot, so capacitors were used to store charges allowing us to get of six shots in less than ten seconds."

"Excuse me mam, this sounds impressive but how does it actually fare against Goa'uld equipment?"

"A fair question, it takes about six shots to drop the shields on an older model Ha'tak, the guns capacitors hold enough charge to drop the shields to point where other weapons such as the plasma projector, railguns and missiles can penetrate the shields and hit the armor. The Prometheus will be carrying two of these when she launches early next year. We have a demonstration prepared for you, if you would just have your attention on the Ha'tak." The Ha'tak was about to have a few more holes added to its collection, most of the 'hull' was actually rock and it showed.

A whine issued for from the gun before a bright pink bolt launched forward, quickly followed by another. A distinct clank-clank could be heard as each capacitor was rotated through in turn.

At the Ha'tak the pink bolt hit the shields causing them to become visible, this was quickly followed by a second third and fourth. The fifth shot hit the shields paused for a heartbeat before a small pink bolt went through and hit the armor, causing a small hole. The sixth shot hit the shields stopped for a split second before most of it continued on a blew a good size chunk out of the armor.

"Well that was certainly impressive. What is the name of this weapon?"

"It's call-"

"Big Honkin Space Gun." The politicians and Carter turned to him. Carter started to protest but was cut off by one of the politicians.

"Big Honkin Space Gun, has a nice ring to it. Well thank you Major for the tour and the demonstration of the Big Honkin Space Gun." So not all politicians were greedy bastards, some of them were just bastards. Carter just glared at him.


	5. Prologue-Disclosure

_Prologue, Disclosure_

_Pentagon Conference Room, February 2015_

Major Paul Davis watched as General Hammond, General Chekov and General McDonald took their seats at the table to his right, there was an empty seat to Hammond's right. As the representatives from China, Mr. Heu Son, Japan, Mr. Soroi Naga, Germany, Mr. Heinrich Staufenburg and Britain, Mr. Charles Lighton at the table to his left.

"Representatives you have been brought here today to be informed of a program the governments of the United States, Canada and Russia have been running over the past several years." The four representatives all raised their eyebrows, they must think it odd that America and Russia have been working together in secret. "It is called the Stargate program." Looks of confusion and constrained laughter, some of them must be thinking back to the original Stargate program, and how we intend to use it for the war on terror. Well representatives, it is time to blow your minds. The screen changed to show the stargate sitting in Cheyenne mountain.

"The original device was unearthed in Giza Egypt in nineteen twenty eight, and is capable of establishing a stable wormhole to an identical device in the galaxy. Allowing for instantaneous travel between any two stargates." Davis had to suppress a smile, the representatives were looking at him with absolute bewilderment, now if only Thor would show up in spectacular undeniable manner. "Each world on the stargate network has an individual six point 'address' as well as a point of origin, to activate a stargate you need to first input the 'address' of the receiving stargate then put in point of origin of the sending stargate."

"The stargate was first activated in nineteen forty five," the image on the screen changed to the grainy black and white video of the stargate. "It was sealed after the initial trials failed to achieve anything of use, and one of the scientist's went missing."

"In two thousand and four Dr. Daniel Jackson managed to uncover a stargate address, he also figured out the 'address' point of origin system used by the stargates. The initial expedition ended up on a world called Abydos, the discovery of a temple on Abydos with a near complete map of the stargate network allowed us to go out and begin exploring the galaxy."

"So you're telling me America has been off galvanizing across the stars while keeping it a secret from the rest of the world. This is something the whole world deserves to know!"

"I assume IS are used for this, strange to think that there original purpose would be fulfilled in a completely unrelated matter."

"We do use IS in the program, however the Alaska treaty does not cover extrasolar use of IS units, so there is no legal block from using them and they are small enough to fit through the stargate. Current second generation and prototype third generation units use systems derived from alien technology we acquired through the Stargate program."

"The GateWay initiative, you've been using that to profit from technologies acquired through the stargate."

"Not exactly, the GateWay initiative was created as a way to discretely introduce technologies acquired through the Stargate program. The Nebraska fusion power generator is an example, using theories gained from the Stargate program and applying them to our existing theories and practical knowledge. The hydroelectric cars that have begun entering the general market are based upon alien technologies. Advances in medical science, material engineering, computing, all of these have benefited from the combination of the Stargate program and the GateWay initiative."

"And all the while you profit off the selling of alien technologies acquired through the stargate." Accused Mr. Son.

"The GateWay initiative is used to introduce theories and some engineering, third party companies do the prototyping. They then patent their designs through the GateWay initiative. So no, the Stargate program does not create profit off of alien technologies."

"I, see."

"Evidently you have a reason for not disclosing earlier, what is it?"

"The Goa'uld, a race of parasitic aliens. While they did not build the stargate network they regularly use it. Several thousand years ago the Goa'uld visited earth and transplanted humans from earth across the galaxy. Many ancient cultures at the time were influenced by them at the time, including Egypt, Greece, the Mayans, and early Israelites. Some of the transplanted humans where turned into what are known as Jaffa, a human offshoot created to serve as an incubator for Goa'uld young allowing them to have an easier time taking humans as hosts."

"The Goa'uld employ several varieties of spacecraft, the largest being the Ha'tak battleship, carrier, troop transport, and temple. The next would be the Al'kesh bomber, then the Tel'tak shuttle and the Death Glider attack aircraft. The main weapon they employ is the Ma'tok, a plasma gun. The Goa'uld have created several different sizes of Ma'tok, the largest of which serves as the primary armament of Ha'taks, the smallest version is the Ma'tok staff which is used by Jaffa in combat as an antipersonnel armament. There is also the Zat'nik'tel, an electric based weapon capable of both stunning and killing a target. Then there are the Intar based weapons, used for training they fire a non lethal burst that renders it's target unconscious."

"Politically the Goa'uld are divided into system lords, each ruling over a number of planets, under them are various minor Goa'uld who serve the system lords in various roles. Leading the Goa'uld is a supreme system lord who commands the Goa'uld empire as a whole. The last supreme system lord died eleven years ago and plunged the Goa'uld into a civil war to determine the next supreme system lord. Since our first trip through the stargate we have been at war with them."

"You have taken actions that have placed this entire world in danger, without informing any of us about this threat. Did you honestly believe you could combat this threat by yourself's."

"Until recently there has never been a direct threat to earth-" He was cut off when the door at the back of the room opened and Robert Kinsey stepped through."

"Sorry that I'm late, politics. How far did you get?"

"We were just being informed about the threat to the whole world that America has brought on us."

"I see. Well I can assure you that they are doing everything they can to contain this threat, after all we didn't know the full extent of the threat until it was to late. Now Major why don't you explain to these fine gentlemen what we've been doing to protect this planet." Kinsey seemed unfazed by the glares he was receiving from the three generals.

Doing his best to keep a neutral face, Davis went over to the computer and brought up the X301 onto the main display. "The X301 fighter-interceptor is a fusion of a Goa'uld death glider outfitted with earth based technology. Due to a limited number of captured gliders only a few were built, and it is outclassed in every category by the F302 fighter-bomber." Changing the display to the next slide. "The F302 is a completely earth built craft, constructed using various pieces of reversed engineered technology. The craft is capable of achieving orbit unaided, as well as being able to take of and land vertically."

"Are you telling me that you have the capability to dominate the airspace of any nation on this planet! The balance of power has been completely destroyed!"

"With all due respect representative the balance of power changed ten years ago with the introduction of IS. It was never restored afterwards and the entire world has been waiting to see where it falls."

"I must point out as well that America has always had such capabilities, and has not used them. Now please continue Major."

"IS units used by the Stargate program have been upgraded with some alien technology, most notably reactors small enough to fit on the IS frames. While we can build IS frames we have yet to be able to recreate an IS core. The IS themselves are most often used as heavy weapon platforms in support of operations, they also are used for suppressing enemy air power."

"So not only have you been developing technologies that would allow you to dominate the world, you have been breaking international treaties to accomplish them! How far can you go!"

"We have not violated any clauses in the Alaska treaty, while it does prevent military deployment on earth, it has nothing concerning extrasolar deployments." Hammond retorted.

"That was not what I was referring to General. The reactor's you use are not part of the treaty nor are the weapons you must you use!" Mr. Naga responded.

"The treaty does not prohibit the use of onboard reactors for powering IS units."

"That still does not cover your weapons, if- no when the IISOC finds out you will regret it!"

"All the weapons used by our IS have been approved by the IISOC." Mr. Naga deflated at that. He was preparing to breathe a sigh of relief when Mr. Son interjected.

"Is there any more technologies we should be aware of?"

Kinsey got there first. "You may as well tell them now, their going to find out anyway."

Clearing his throat and shifting the show to the next slide. "After our first encounter with a Goa'uld Ha'tak we have been working to build a counter. The result was the D303, a first generation ship built on earth. We currently have the Prometheus, Bodsky and Kanata operational. The ship itself can go toe to toe with a Ha'tak and come out victorious."

Mr. Son stood up from his chair, planted his hands down on the table in front of him and bellowed. "THIS IS ABSOLULELY UNACCEPTABLE! It was one thing with the IS and the fighter craft, but whole ships. That is unacceptable."

"Please, representative calm down."

"How can I calm down, you have thrown the entire balance of power into disarray. How can I be calm?"

"Why don't we take a break and reconvene later?" Proposed Chekov.

Mr. Naga responded first. "I think that's for the best."

_Later, Lunch Hall_

"...representative I assure you that we have only this worlds interests at heart-"

"Despite following America's lead, by allowing them to get the lions share of the technological developments from the stargate. By allowing America to become the unchallenged global ruler. Is that how you have the world's best interests at heart?"

"Mr. Son while I respect your opinion you must consider that one of the reasons why America has not gone public with the Stargate program is that while publicly they have an edge it is enough that the world does not feel threatened. If that were to change it would quickly escalate into a world war."

"They have the advantage."

"True, but not publicly, and I don't think I need to explain why a world war would be extremely bad."

"I will accept that for now, if only to avoid an incident. But would you care to explain how you feel safe knowing that America has both superior fighters and space ships that can bombard cities from orbit and are virtually untouchable."

"For one we have our own F302s, as well as the Bodsky which has fewer technical problems than the Prometheus has. The Bodsky barely cost us twenty percent of what it cost the Americans to build the Prometheus. Besides they have barely scratched the surface on what there is to tell about the Stargate program."

"You mean there is more they have not told us!"

"Yes, but please you must understand there is a lot of things to know, and in all fairness they have started with the things you would most likely wish to know. Reserve judgement until after they have gone through everything."

"As you wish, but so far I am unimpressed with what they have done."

_Later, Conference Room_

As the representatives, generals and Kinsey began taking their seats at the tables, Davis was bringing up the slide show on the major alien powers the SGC had encountered outside of the Goa'uld. Once they were done taking their seats Davis began. "While we have made an enemy of the Goa'uld we have made allies in the course of our struggle. The foremost being the To'kra and the Asgard."

"The To'kra are a group of Goa'uld rebels who have an extensive spy network set up throughout the Goa'uld empire. It is through this network that we have been able to stay one step ahead of the system lords and keep the civil war going."

"The Asgard are an extragalactic race several millions of years old. It is through the Asgard's protected planets treaty that the Goa'uld have been unable to directly attack us without risky direct Asgard intervention."

"Isn't that a name from Norse mythology?"

"Partially, the name originates from the Asgard race who did visit earth several times throughout history and were mistaken for gods."

"While these are the two major alliances, we have also encountered several other civilizations who are willing to trade. The Hebridians and the Orbans have been two of the more high profile trading partners. We have also made several exchange programs with Pangar, Langara, Garlar and Latona, each of these worlds have something to offer in exchange for technical expertise."

"Wouldn't that upset the balance of power on these worlds? Giving one faction technology beyond it's time is a recipe for disaster!"

"Langara is the only planet that is divided and we are dealing with all governments of the planet."

"Are you saying that they have somehow become united, look at us almost two hundred different nations."

"Our planet is probably has the largest population in the galaxy, each of these worlds has no more than a million habitats."

"All human planets I assume?"

"With the exception of Hebridan, yes. Hebridan is a union between the Serrakins and Humans who the Serrakins liberated a few centuries ago. We have yet to encounter a great many non human species, the Goa'uld have attempted to wipe out any species they have come into contact with that they could not turn into slaves." At that point the door at the back of the room opened and Dr. Jackson walked in. "Now Dr. Jackson will give a more detailed rundown of current Goa'uld politics." Indicating to the man as he stepped forward in front of the screen, as Davis backed over to the computer to change the slide show.

The first image was a top down view of the galaxy with the various system lords domains outlined in different colors. At first glance it was kind of terrifying considering almost the entire galaxy was covered. But to one who had seen this map overlayed with where the planets actually were, well most of it was empty unexplored space. Out of the trillions of stars in the galaxy the Goa'uld held sway on around three thousand worlds, with less than a thousand of those actually belonging directly to one Goa'uld or another. Compared to the twelve hundred at the time of Ra's death.

"This is the state of the galaxy as of yesterday, each individual color represents the domain of a system lord. Now while they appear to have a lot of worlds under their control, remember most of the are is unexplored systems. While the stargate network stretches across the galaxy it does not cover it there are large sections of the galaxy without stargates."

"Now looking at the two largest areas, these are the domains of Ba'al and Yu. Yu has the largest territory of any of the system lords, holding almost four hundred worlds. While Yu has the largest domain it is less built up than most of the other system lords, he only directly rules seventy worlds. Ba'al control the second largest domain with just under three hundred worlds, unlike Yu, Ba'al has several major industrial worlds fuelling his war machine."

"Sokar is the is the last system lord with more than a hundred systems in his domain, with the loss of his primary industrial world Delmak he has taken a defensive position in his remaining worlds, rebuilding his lost infrastructure. While these three system lords may have the largest domains they have so far expressed no interest in earth, the most prominent reason being that their territory's are a fair distance from earth. An attack on earth would remove forces that can't be easily recalled."

"The next most prominent system lords are Anubis, Heru'ur, Moloc, Amaterasu and Olokun. Each of them controls between a few dozen and several dozen systems. While Moloc, Amaterasu and Olokun have expressed no interest in earth, Anubis and Heru'ur have. In the past year Anubis has attempted to indirectly attack earth twice, both times we managed to avert disaster."

Before he could continue Mr. Lighton interrupted. "How exactly did this Anubis manage to attack, I thought we were under this protected planets treaty?"

"The first time was with an asteroid filled to the brim with naquadah launched at earths north pole, the second was using an ancient device built to use one stargate to destroy another. The asteroid was captured and is now being mined out, the ancient device has been destroyed and Anubis does not have the plans to build another one."

"Excuse me, but what is naquadah. I have not heard of anything by that name."

"Ah sorry, naquadah is a naturally occurring super heavy element that is the basis for most technology we have encountered so far along with trinium, a light weight yet extremely strong metal. We have yet to find any accessible deposits of either on earth."

"Anyway the attacks did not violate any of the clauses of the treaty, pushing it any further is not in our best interest as the Asgard have been providing technical aid to us. Which while not against the treaty would be pointed out as being equal to the indirect attacks."

"Returning to Heru'ur, before we gained protected planet status Heru'ur had designs upon earth, but was spurned when we signed the treaty. Unlike Anubis, Heru'ur did not have the creativity to use alternate means to attack earth. Shortly afterwords a Goa'uld by the name of Zeus began pushing into his territory."

"Sorry for interrupting again Dr. Jackson, but exactly how much protection does this treaty actually provide?"

"Well the Goa'uld may not enter the solar system, via either ship or stargate and must prevent other Goa'uld from doing so. The only exception is if we give permission for them to send a diplomatic party here. While the Asgard cannot provide us with their technology. They don't really try to stop others from doing so, as it has a tendency to be fatal for the who is attacking, while the rest can move in and claim their territory. Did that answer your question?"

"For now yes."

"Alright then, moving on. The remaining system lords have only a handful of planets in their domain and ally themselves with stronger system lords to remain independent. Camulus is the only one who has not allied himself with a more prominent system lord. Morrigan and Ramius are allied with Yu, Bastet, Kali and Selkhet are allied to Ba'al, Aziel and Tilgath are allied to Sokar. Ares and Zipacna are allied with Anubis, Savrog is allied to Heru'ur."

Mr. Staufenburg interrupted before he could continue. "That's a lot of names, but are they all relevant. I mean they can't all be worth being of note."

"Each of these Goa'uld control at least a few dozen Ha'tak and a dozen or so worlds, which makes them a force that has to be watched. Below them on the Goa'ulds power tree are the several dozen minor Goa'uld who control a few planets and maybe a dozen Ha'tak."

"The current galactic climate is the result of the death of the last supreme system lord Ra eleven years ago. As the Goa'uld do not have any formal succession the next supreme system lord will be the Goa'uld who garners the most strength. It is for this reason that we have avoided killing to many minor Goa'ulds and lesser system lords, as the surviving Goa'uld move in and claim any remaining planets and ships."

"In recent years numerous Jaffa have become disillusioned with the Goa'uld and have begun a rebellion amongst the Jaffa that make almost the entirety of the Goa'ulds military force. The Tok'ra have done what they can to aid the rebels, unfortunately their is very little organization amongst the rebel Jaffa coupled with the fact that most of the rebellious actions have been spontaneous acts. The most notable being the death of a minor Goa'uld Grannus by his own personal guard."

"Exactly how much can we trust the Jaffa, they are rebelling," Mr. Lighton questioned.

"We aren't relying on Jaffa to fight our wars, while the Goa'uld rely on the Jaffa to fight theirs." Mr. Lighton returned to his notes. "Any further questions, I will be in the hall for those of you who wish to speak with me afterwords." With that Jackson did a short bow before moving around to the rear door and exiting the room.

"Well that was, informative. Is it normal for Goa'uld to have names drawn from ancient mythology?"

"A good question, the Goa'uld created religions around themselves when they came to earth. We will be handing out an information package for those that wish one."

"Is there anything else we should be aware of, I would prefer to leave with the most complete picture possible." Mr. Staufenburg asked.

"First of, as we have ventured out into the stargate network we began setting up offworld basses of operation, the largest of these bases are the Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Russian Alpha sites, with the remainder being small scientific outposts or mining operations. During the maiden voyage of the Prometheus we came across a system approximately three thousand lightyears from Sol towards the galactic rim, what makes this system special is the abundance of minerals in the system. While the system itself had no stargate and no habitable planets we have begun setting up a domed colony to begin mining and processing of the minerals. The largest world in the system where we set up our operations was named Harvest by the crew of the Prometheus."

Mr. Naga seemed interested. "That's certainly ambitious Major, you said had no stargate, where did the planets stargate come from then?"

"Over the course of the program we have come across several 'dead worlds', we simply transplanted the stargate from one of these worlds to Harvest. Using regular ships we are able to supply Harvest with the bulk items required for the construction of the colony. Several smaller ships are at Harvest should the need arise to evacuate."

"While we currently only have the three D303s operational, the next four D303s are nearing completion and should be finished in the next two to three months." The representatives immediately looked more interested. "After the completion of those four ships we do not have any more D303s planned, however we are prototyping a second generation ship, the X304 Daedalus. We are expecting the ship to come online sometime this summer. We are also working on constructing an FTL capable shuttle craft to serve us as transportation around a solar system without resorting to one of our larger or scavenged ships. There are massive deposits of valuable minerals scattered around the solar system that we can't use at the moment."

"I'm sorry, but you mentioned scavenged ships."

"Yes, during the course of running the Stargate program we have acquired a number of Goa'uld vessels that we have been studying."

"I see, and you failed to mention these before why?"

"We were going to mention them before the end of the meeting."

"Fair enough, please continue."

"We are currently working on prototype third generation IS frames, using construction techniques learned through the Stargate program. This is the first generation of IS to be built from the ground up using this technology." The representatives threw suspicious glances at the generals and himself. "We are fully willing to disclose the techniques used in the construction of the prototype IS frames." Their gazes softened slightly but remained suspicious."

"In addition we have been working on a second generation of fighter craft using lessons learned throughout the life of the F302, and recent technological advancements. There are also some non IS powered armour being looked into, though at the moment they have had little success."

"I believe you will find a solution to your problems in time, is there anything else Major?" Asked Mr. Lighton.

"Yes sir, ten years worth of mission reports scientific reports, technological advancements on top of a wealth of archeological and historical information. But I believe we have covered the most relevant points during this meeting. Myself, Dr. Jackson and Dr. Carter will be available for a time afterwards to address any concerns you may have."

"Thank you major." Mr. Lighton, Mr. Staufenburg and Mr. Naga stood up and prepared to leave when Mr. Son spoke up.

"I do not believe we are finished, I do not believe my government would be comfortable with the idea of leaving the stargate in the hands of the Americans." The other representatives returned to their seats. "While the Americans have prevented the world from falling into disaster so far I am of the firm belief that the Stargate needs to be handled by an international organization, it simply gives one nation to much power."

Kinsey was the first to respond, "I agree representative, the stargate is to much for any military organization to control. What I propose instead is that we give direct control of the gate over to a civilian organization, this would allow direct control of the gate to be in the hands of the people instead of a military organization. The NID-"

"I must refuse that suggestion senator, from what British intelligence has on this NID they are the last people I would allow any where near something like the stargate. And while the idea of a civilian organization in charge of the stargate would be perfectly fine during peace time, the military should have control during war time such as it obviously is."

"I would like to add the NIDs terrible track record when they were given some power over stargate operations." Hammond added."

"That still does satisfy that America alone has control over the stargate."

For the first time during the meeting General McDonald spoke up, "what if we create a joint task force with members from all nations here to be in charge of the stargate, and move the stargate to a location we can all agree upon."

Mr. Son visibly relaxed before responding, "that is a possibility we are willing to consider, however that will take time to set up and leaves the stargate in American hands during that time."

Chekov responded, "there are other ways we ca-" he was cut off by a chime and a bright white light that deposited Thor sitting in his command chair onto the space to his right.

Mr. Lighton recovered first, "hello."

"Greetings I am supreme commander Thor of the Asgard fleet."

"Good to see you Thor, I take it you completed our request."

"Yes General Hammond, we have managed to translate the requested technical plans into the Terran languages of German, Chinese and Japanese."

Kinsey stood up raising a finger, "Commander Thor, I am Senato-"

Thor interrupted while raising a finger, "Supreme Commander Thor, you are senator Robert Kinsey, O'Neill suggested I send you to a distant world. And given your ties to the organization known as the NID and their actions as well as some of your own, I have considered such a course of action." Kinsey promptly sat back down, looking a little pale.

"Supreme commander Thor what exactly were these technical plans mentioned?"

"General Hammond requested that we translate plans for several devices used of Asgard origin into other Terran languages."

Mr. Son stared in disbelief, "You are willing to provide us with the technical plans for your devices?"

"Yes, our dealings have always been with all the people of Terra."

"But you only dealt with the Americans before?" Inquired Mr. Staufenburg.

"We have given equal treatment to the Americans, Russians and Canadians, now that you are aware of the truth we extend that equal treatment to you."

"But, why did you not force them to deal with all the nations of earth when you first began dealing with them?"

"That would have been interfering with your internal affairs, which I doubt any of you would have preferred. And not all individuals are capable of accepting such changes to their view of the universe."

Mr. Naga spoke up. "I believe you underestimate the human race."

"Perhaps, but from what I have seen of your race, on this world and others, only a few are able to accept the universe as it is and not how they wish to see it. You are not that different from our kind when we were younger."

"You claim to treat each of us equally, yet will you force the Americans to relinquish control of the stargate?"

"That would be interfering in your internal affairs. Now while the Asgard high councils continued friendship with earth is not contingent upon the stargate being left under the command of General Hammond, it is preferred." Silence entered the room.

Mr. Son was the first to speak up. "I must take this back to my government for consideration." With that the representatives got up and left along with the three generals. Thor chimed out in a flash of light, leaving Kinsey pale faced looking at the table.


	6. Chapter 1-Ha'tak theft 101

_Chapter One, Ha'tak theft 101_

_P56-M38, February 2015_

Colonel Louis Ferretti raised the rifle to his shoulder before squeezing off a three round burst at the Jaffa who had stuck his head out of his hiding place. The rifle impacted his shoulder three times through the padding on his right shoulder. The first round missed the Jaffa while the second round hit him dead center of the mark of Heru'ur on his forehead, finally the third round clipped him on the ear.

Green clad soldiers ran through the trees past him before taking up positions and laying down fire on the Jaffa positions. One of them was struck by a staff bolt and went down. Breaking from their positions the men in Ferretti's wave began moving forward. Doing there best to stay out of the line of fire, they advanced past where the other wave had formed a line and towards the nearby Ha'tak mothership, with a second of to the right and behind the first. The forest was quickly thinning out as they approached the parked mothership, cover was becoming thinner on the ground. The Jaffa were having it worse then his troops were by virtue of being closer to the clearing than he was.

Just outside of the forest was the last obstacle before the mothership, a hastily erected nest of staff cannons and trenches. The occasional staff cannon blast flew into the trees, blowing apart anything it caught. One struck a trooper, the unlucky soldier simply vanished in a short lived explosion. "Mayors, take out that position, it's right in front of the Ha'tak."

"Aye sur, deat inncomin."

"Down!" The troopers with him immediately hit the ground just in time to see dozens of miniature disks fly overhead and into the Jaffa position. One single ground shaking explosion later and the position was little more than earth and pieces of Jaffa. "Clear, move up." Signalling for the advance to resume. Moving out of the forest and into the clearing, Ferretti could see the remains of Jaffa everywhere, his men putting the few disoriented survivors down. The open entrance to the Ha'tak was about a hundred yards ahead, when the glider bays opened. "Go, go, go!" Pumping his legs to get to the entrance out into cover away from the gliders before they could get a chance to move in and strafe his soldiers. The IS units accompanying the attack never gave the gliders that chance.

The second the glider bays had finished opening, Beth already had a three kilogram ferrous slug pointed at the bay. The slug left the end of the rail cannon at almost three times the speed of sound, her wings immediately flaring to absorb the recoil before she could be sent flying. The slug left a bright streak where it heated up the air before impacting a glider just exiting the bay. The Goa'uld Death Glider was a fairly robust craft, but even it couldn't stand up to three kilograms of supersonic iron. The slug hit the craft blowing completely through the glider before continuing on into another parked glider readying for take off, and passing through that one as well before continuing on into the Ha'taks super structure imbedding itself there.

After the slug had completed its short journey, Beth placed the cannon into quantum storage before retrieving a rail rifle and leaping into the air and joining the rest of the IS units in the team heading for the two motherships. Six IS units peeled off and headed for the far mothership while she and her wingmate escorted the air taxis to the closer mothership.

Flying ahead of the air taxi's into she accelerated towards the open glider bay. Firing the wing mounted staff cannons into the bay during her approach before decelerating to enter the bay without embedding herself into the opposite wall. Once she had cleared the door she swung her rail rifle to the left and began firing around the bay with steel shards. Her wingmate started from the far right and worked towards their front while she did the same on the left. They were starting back to sweep back again when the air taxi's entered the bay.

Private Santiago Ramirez clung on for dear life as his IS 'taxi' leaped off the ground and into the air hurtling towards the nearest Ha'tak, the acceleration pushing him into his harness. Passing through the glider bay door and into the glider bay, Ramirez swung his Zat back and forth searching for targets. Finding none he relaxed slightly, not enough so that he was not hanging on for dear life.

His 'taxi' hovered over to one of the catwalks inside the bay, he returned the Zat to its holster before unclasping the harness and dropping down onto the catwalk. His riding partner did the same over on his left, both of them retrieved their rifles from the IS before jogging over to where their team leader and the tekie had gotten off.

After they all had gathered they set of towards the exit of the glider bay that was closet to the Ha'tak's bridge. The second team that came in with them was heading down to make sure the colonel and the rest of the troops made it on board.

As they approached the exit two pairs of IS units came down and landed on the catwalk in front of them. All four of them stored their wings so they could manoeuvre inside the Ha'taks corridors.

Storing her wings Beth exited the bay and into the corridors of the Ha'tak. Sweeping her rifle left first before moving on, her wingmate sweeping right. Continuing forward into the Ha'tak towards the bridge it took them several minutes before they encountered any resistance. The first unlucky Jaffa simply had his head smashed against the wall by her oversized fist. From the number of Jaffa around it appeared the distraction worked.

The bridge had some Jaffa guarding it, but were dealt with through the use of a grenade rolling into their midst. As the team of troops entered the bridge and began the process of hijacking the Ha'tak, Beth and the other IS formed a defensive cordon to ensure the Jaffa couldn't take back the bridge.

Ferretti leaned his head around the corner to get a look at the corridor ahead before quickly pulling back to avoid several staff blasts that flew down the corridor. Unclasping a grenade from his belt and priming it before chucking the small disk down the corridors. There was a loud bang followed by some moaning and the staff blasts stopped. Grabbing his Zat he rushed around the corner and down the corridor, all the while firing shots into any Jaffa still moving. Reaching the end of the corridor he noted that the other two corridors leading of the intersection he was at were empty.

As soon as the rest of the troops had caught up the advance continued up the right hand corridor, which should lead them to the ramps that would take them up. Approaching the ramps, a group of Jaffa rounded the corner and took several seconds to bring their staffs around, by which time all bu two of their number had been dropped by Zat blasts. Ferretti ducked as twin yellow bolts flew over his head, pressing himself against the wall to minimize his profile all the while sending Zat blasts at the pair of Jaffa. Barely as soon as it had started it was over with the Jaffa all on the floor stunned or dead.

Hurrying up to the intersection he could hear the sound of Jaffa coming down the ramp to aid those they had just killed. Swapping his Zat for his rifle he signaled for the other troops to get ready to receive, while he stood leaning around the corner aiming up the ramp. The first Jaffa to round the corner at the top of the ramp took three rounds straight to the chest killing him instantly. After that two staff weapons were poked around the corner and began firing blind shots down the ramp at the troops position, a few Jaffa tried to take advantage of the ineffective covering fire but were cut down before they could start down the ramp. Unfortunately Ferretti' team couldn't charge up the ramp without horrendous casualties, time to try another plan. "Resnov, take some men and see if any of the other ramps are clear."

"Aye, keep them busy here comrade." Resnov and three men peeled off and headed back the way they came to see if they could get to another ramp. "We will inform you if it is clear."

For their part the Jaffa seemed content to sit there and fire down at the troops, he hoped Colonel Resnov found an unguarded ramp that they could use to get behind these guys. Suddenly the incoming fire cut off and the sound of running Jaffa could be heard going up into the Ha'tak. Taking a look a round the corner showed no staff weapons sticking out, switching to his Zat he quickly and quietly made his way up the ramp. Looking around the landing revealed no Jaffa about, a quick hand signal brought the remaining troops up with him.

The sounds of staff weapon and Zat discharges along with the rattle of kinetic weaponry drifted down from above. After taking a moment to inform Resnov of the situation, and the Russian doing some token grumbling, he lead the way upwards towards the fighting.

Captain Amy Aucoin quite literally ran the unfortunate Jaffa warrior over as she was barreling through the corridor. After the poor Jaffa had been crushed underneath the mass of her armour, the momentum she had built up kept her going forward and into another Jaffa. Swinging her rifle around she caught another Jaffa in the head and knoked him backwards. Backing up to the nearest cover she unloaded the rail rifle into the mass of Jaffa who had been coming up the ramp. In the confined space the Jaffa were trapped, their armour offering them no respite against the steel shards tearing them apart.

A few Jaffa at the bottom of the ramp managed to get into cover and began firing up at her, she held her fire to see if that would trick them into charging up the ramp. She was somewhat disappointed when they didn't, though she still held her fire, this was going to end like all to many corridor fights did with level headed Jaffa, a long wait until one side got flanked.

The sounds of battle were close now, rounding the latest corner at the top of the ramp he spotted a group of five Jaffa taking cover at the top of the next ramp. Signalling to the men behind him they quickly got ready before each one of them but a triplet of rifle rounds into the backs of the Jaffa, the Jaffa never realized they were under attack.

Hurrying up the ramp he reached the top and looked up the next ramp to see an IS unit standing there rifle held ready. Seeing them she nodded, Ferretti then waved the rest of the troops up.

Flying low over the trees Major Alicia Doucette and the other five members of her squadron closed in on the second Ha'tak. Two gliders had made it out of and were now attempting to attack the IS squadron, two air to air missiles put an end to them before they could score any hits. Lazily aimed yellow plasma bolts flew towards the squadron, due to the poor targeting systems none connected, missiles, rail bolts and plasma flew towards the Ha'tak. A pair of missiles streaked into the open glider bay before hitting something inside and detonating.

Deploying grenade boxes she flew into the entrance of the bay before unloading all eight boxes each containing forty spring loaded grenades. The boxes were arranged to send the grenades in a half sphere around here, the practical effect was that grenades were now scattered to all points of the bay. Quickly reversing direction to get herself outside, she then dropped down as they detonated. The grenades each filled with a bit of naquadah and an alkali metal mixture, then stuffed with metal fragments. All three hundred and twenty grenades went off at once sending shrapnel and a cloud of smoke out of the bay exit.

Before the smoke had finished clearing another IS fired a 'sticky' nuke into the bay, the magnetic head would keep it fixed to the interior until it came time to blow it. With the carnage caused by the grenades it would hopefully not be found until it was set off, after which there wouldn't be enough of it left to find. Falling back, she noted that all the weapon emplacements on the near side of the Ha'tak had been disabled or destroyed. They reached the other Ha'tak and flew in through its glider bay just as the ship was taking off. She stayed outside long enough to get the a second nuke placed where the ship had been before heading into the glider bay.

When Ferretti reached the top of the ramp he felt a slight shaking indicating they were taking off. "Everyone accounted for?" A series of ayes and yes sirs answered him. "Move to positions and stay there until the all clear is given. After the latest order was acknowledged Ferretti lead his troops down the corridor to the reactor control room, one of the few places onboard a Ha'tak that could be sealed off.

"We've just cleared the atmosphere activating decompression." Tension filled the room as the air in the remaining compartments was sucked into the life support system. Several minutes passed before he could hear sound from the other side of the door signalling that pressure had been restored to the ship. Opening the door he signalled for the others to stay put as he made his way to the bridge.

_Later, Bridge_

Ferretti stepped pass the IS units guarding the bridge and into the bridge itself where Colonel Resnov and Colonel Mosher were standing around, both gave him a nod when he came in. "Casualty report."

Mosher started listing out the list, "six dead, four of them beyond sarcophagus revival, three in critical condition, another eight with injuries that will need to be looked at and everyone else has the usual collection of scrapes and bruises." That made nine out of commission until they got back to base, four of whom weren't coming back. The politicians wouldn't care and most of the brass would look at four soldiers for an intact Ha'tak as a good bargain, they didn't have to write letters to the families of the permanently dead.

"How soon until we reach base?"

"Another eight hours, we should get patrols moving around to see if we can find any pockets of Jaffa that may have survived."

"Go ahead," stretching his back "when we get back to base beers are on me."

Resnov raised a complaint, "while I respect you colonel I must insist that you are not the one to get the beer."

"Resnov's right, we need real beer, not that horsepiss you Americans claim is beer, we need something with taste."

"Agreed."

Raising his hands in defeat, "fine, you two get the beer. I'll start on the mission report." Ferretti watched as the two men began a debate over which beer would be most suitable for the occasion.

_Later, Earth, Whitehouse, Presidents office_

"I received this earlier this morning, along with some information the Tok'ra passed along, it appears our little raid against Heru'ur has stirred things up a bit. The consensus among the Tok'ra is that both Ha'tak were destroyed, Heru'ur is operating along the same assumptions. This has caused increased pressure from the other system lords to begin moving against Heru'ur, which means their attention is not directed at us, or our allies." Hammond explained while President Barak Obama listened to him.

"A shark sensing blood in the water. They sure are quick to turn on any of their own they see as weak, any worrying developments on the galactic scene?"

"Other than we wont last a day if they decide to destroy us, no."

"Well that may be changing within a few years, the British have dispatched a delegation to confirm the status of the Stargate Program. They will be coming down to the SGC for a visit, try to keep them away from O'Neill, he's a good soldier but he can be a bit blunt at times." Hammond gave out a light chuckle, he would need to make sure SG1 had a mission when the delegation arrived, preferably one that would take them a few hours to screw up. "From our ears in Berlin and Tokyo the Germans and Japanese are creating delegations to send over, no word yet on what China plans to do." What went unsaid was that China was most likely to blow the whole program into the open, something that they would rather not have happen yet.

"I'll have the SGC ready to receive visitors, I take it you want me to keep them away from certain rooms."

"That would be wise, and if you can do it without tipping them off would be even better." Looking at his watch, Obama checked the time. "In the mean time I have a meeting with Thor in about thirty seconds."

"Thirty seconds?" As if on cue there was a chiming noise and a bright white light appeared in the room. After the light died down Thor was sitting in the sofa to Hammonds right.

"Greetings General Hammond and President Obama."

"Good to see you commander. How are you today?"

"I am well, the Asgard have finished our study of IS cores, we have not been able to create any progress on replicating them or discovering why they only respond to certain individuals. We have made progress into creating something that functions almost identically to an IS unit, however it has yet to be finished. How are the other nations reacting to the revelation of the Stargate?"

"They haven't panicked yet, though that could be partially due to disbelief, most of the countries we talked to are sending people to confirm the gate existence."

"That is good to hear, you are much stronger together than you will ever be apart. I'm afraid I must depart for Ida now, we are preparing a counter offensive against the replicators shortly."

"If you need our help you know where to find us."

"For the time being your help is unnecessary, but the offer is appreciated." With that Thor disappeared in a white light along with a chime.

"Well can't say that news was unexpected, not what I was hoping for but not unexpected. So getting Japan and then Tabanae onboard is still our best bet for getting new IS cores built. What's the latest word on the third gen prototype at area fifty one?"

"Finished, they're going to let Cassandra pilot it. I believe I made my feelings clear about handing one of the most advanced IS units on the planet clear."

"Yes you have, as your president I overruled you on that. The machine and Cassandra will be heading to the IS academy come April. Certain groups are starting to look at us weird for not having had any representative candidates at all. Besides it will make a good comparison against the other IS in development."

"You do realize Cassandra is Hankain not American."

"I do, beside," puling up a file and placing it in front of Hammond, "I want to get someone close to him to see if this is a fake or the real deal."

Hammond looked down at the first page of the file, it pictured a teenage boy around fifteen with black hair and brown eyes placed on an oriental face. The file was labelled Ichika Orimura, the first male IS operator.

_Area 51, Hangar five_

Cassandra Fraiser walked down the corridor towards hangar number five following Jolinar and Dr. Samantha Carter to the hangar. All the while she shifted uncomfortably in her uniform denoting her as a member of the United States Air Force, rank Private. "I can't believe they actually talked mom into letting me put on a uniform." She had also got some information from certain 'sources' that the military appointment had been given presidential 'push'.

"Well the assurances that you're going to the most 'secure' place in the world outside of area fifty one and the SGC, helped calm her down."

"Yeah, she was absolutely livid when I took the IS suitability test, she got even crazier after I broke the damn scale on it during the test." She had not only managed to max out the IS suitability 'meter', she created a whole new grade above the existing ones. "You think my 'abilities' have anything to do with my ability to pilot an IS?" Her 'abilities' composed of picking up occasional surface thoughts along with the ability to move low mass objects without touching them.

"Maybe, if we had more psychic people to test it on, but seeing as no one else has abilities similar to yours, it probably doesn't affect it." Arriving at the last door before the hangar Carter withdrew a keycard from her pocket and swiped it through the reader before putting her hand down on the hand scanner. A slight buzz accompanied the door unlocking followed by Carter swinging it open. Stepping into the hangar, although hangar was a bit generous given its size. Hangar five was one of a few dedicated IS hangars at area fifty one.

The hangar while not crammed was definitely full of equipment, most likely used in the construction of IS units. "May I present to you the Blitz, a third generation IS unit built by the SGC." In a relatively clear area of the floor knelt an IS unit, the first thing she noted about it was the lack of wing mounts which most IS employed by the SGC used. The unit itself resembled a medieval knight, thick grey armour made up the torso, arms and legs. The wings were little more than stubs attached to the engine units, at the moment the wings were attached to the rear of the unit.

"Here, go change, you can use the area at the back." She caught the flying clothing out of the air, she sent a sceptical look at Carter. "Don't worry, I'll keep everyone else out until you're finished."

"Not what I'm worried about."

"Remember who showed you how to use earth plumbing." She felt her cheeks heat up and immediately went to the area Carter had indicated. Reaching there she quickly changed into the flight suit. After donning the flight suit she stepped back into the main area to find that Carter had readied the suit to receive a pilot, via opening up the torso enough for her to get in.

Stepping into the IS was tricky, the task was made easier by a step ladder brought up to the side so she could climb in. Dropping her legs in first then sliding her arms into place, the suit closed up around her. Carter took a step back, as she brought the suit to a full standing position, next came the helmet which materialized around her head.

"Hey Cas can you here me?" Carter was standing in front of her and waving.

"Hear you loud and clear."

"All right were going to start with the HUD, your unit is powered by a pair of pure naquadah reactors, rather than batteries as most units are. Can you tell me what you're seeing for output?" She began checking the HUD for anything resembling power output.

"Uhhhh..., reactors are in the green." Wait where did that come from? It then dawned on her that the IS itself was feeding information directly into her mind.

"How's the shield?"

"Full integrity."

"While you're at the academy, your unit will be limited to a shield energy of a thousand, as the Blitz is powered by reactors you have an unlimited supply of shield energy. Other nations won't have that, as only SGC IS units are equipped with reactors. Even though you have an unlimited amount of energy, you can only use a small portion of it at any one time meaning take to many hits in a short window and the shield will go down."

"Now bring up the weapons list." On the HUD a list of a dozen or so weapons appeared. "Bring out the plasma cannon." Holding out an arm the plasma cannon appeared, little more than a grey black box with handles sticking out of it. "The plasma cannon you're holding is a scaled down version of the BHSG."

"Doesn't that have a recharge rate of one shot every five minutes?" She asked skeptically.

"The one you're holding can shoot eight shots before running dry, and unlike the ship mounted BHSG you can swap out capacitors to get more shots. You may not need to seeing as from empty the cannon requires about a minute to reach full capacity. Now switch out for the rail rifle." The cannon disappeared in motes of light before the rail rifle appeared in Blitz's hands. The rifle was a long tube that tapered slightly towards the front, at the rear the tube became more rectangular before ending in a stock attache to the handle and trigger. "The rail rifle is the mainstay of SGC IS units, it fires solid steel rounds at about a speed of mach dot nine, the magazine holds a hundred and fifty rounds which on full auto is emptied in about a minute."

"You also have a rail cannon," switching out the rifle for the cannon, she nearly had the end of the cannon hit the floor after it appeared. The cannon was a long box with a magazine and handle affixed to it. "The cannon fires three kilogram ferrous slugs at mach two dot eight, after each shot you'll have to wait roughly one and a half seconds before you can fire again, this is to let the rails build up charge again and cool off."

"In addition you have grenade boxes with adjustable timed fuses, each grenade explodes with a force of around half kilogram of TNT. Additional weapons include the Zat caster, which fires bursts of electrical energy."

"Now as you may have noticed the Blitz doesn't come equipped with wing mounted weapons, you can deploy two rail guns onto the wings if more firepower is required. At the moment the Blitzes profile is small enough that it can fit into corridors aboard Goa'uld and Asgard ships, while the rail guns are stored the engines can point in any direction faster allowing faster directional acceleration."

"Propulsion, the Blitz has the standard gravity/anti-gravity drives along with a pair of micro ion drives, in theory the Blitz could push up to ten times its own mass. The fins around the ion drives provide the gravity based propulsion."

"Armour, the Blitz is using trinium-naquadah plating varying between twenty five and fifty millimeters depending upon the location."

"Hey Carter, can I ask you a quick question?"

"Go ahead."

"Why am I getting my own machine? I mean sure it's a great way to test it but don't you guys need every IS unit available to go against the Goa'uld? There are only four hundred and sixty seven cores in the world."

"Officially there are only four hundred and sixty seven, in reality there are closer to six hundred cores being used around the world. Now why don't we head outside for a flight test."

_Outside, Runway_

Doing a last minute check over the systems before the first test flight, all systems read green. Time to do this. Calming her mind, she focused on flying.

She launched herself straight up into the air, the ion drives pushing her faster and faster. Barely two hundred meters above the ground a slight shutter ran through the frame, she had broke the sound barrier. Pushing the unit to one and a half times the speed of sound she brought herself around going towards the horizon. Slowing herself down before bringing herself to a stop two and a half kilometers above area fifty one. "Cassandra can you hear me?"

"Loud and clear."

"Alright then, I'm sending up some targets for you to practice on." A few seconds later she locked on to several shapes leaving the base and coming up towards her. The targets were little more than rocket motors attached to red and white ball. Bringing out the rail rifle she lined up the first target and squeezed the trigger.

_Later_

Getting out of the shower and drying herself off, she went back into the main changing area of the women's 'locker room'. There she dressed herself and retrieved Blitz in its storage form as a locket on a chain. She drew herself back to the practice earlier today, she had fired of three hundred rounds from the rail rifle but only downed thirty of the targets.

Leaving the 'locker room' in her 'civilian' clothes she made her way to the agreed upon meeting place with Carter. Arriving at the meeting spot she found Carter already waiting by her car. "What took you so long." Carter asked teasingly.

"I told you I had to get a shower."

"Yeah, yeah. Get in and I'll take you home." Getting in the passenger side of the car she strapped herself in before letting loose a yawn. "Tired?"

"Just a bit." The car had barely left the base when she snoozed off.

Carter watched as Cas drifted off to sleep, they had just left area fifty one and were looking to be on the road for a bit as they made their way back to civilization.

_Despite it being the her first time piloting the Blitz she has adapted remarkably well. _Jolinar decided to initiate a conversation, the Tok'ra symbiote had been a part of her life for the past several years now. _It may have been that Nirrti was on to something in her experiments._

I would suggest against saying that out loud at any point in time. Nirrti was mad and insane, she didn't care how many people got hurt so long as she got what she wanted.

_Perhaps, but look to you're own history. Many advances would not have been possible without resorting to cruel experiments. _Carter couldn't find any way to respond to that.


	7. Chapter 2-Musings

_Chapter Two, Musings_

_Anubis's base, Tartarus, March 2015_

_Musings of a Demigod_

Anubis rotated the hologram detailing his next generation fighter, the prototype was well under way to being completed. His new craft would completely outclass the older death gliders and hopefully be a match Tau'ri and Hebridan craft. The craft mounted twin repeating staff cannons and a small bomb bay that could hold a few naquadah bombs. Propulsion was a rebuilt version of the typical gravity drive used by his brethren, his version but out three times as much thrust and didn't have that annoying and useless crescent shape to it. His new fighter was more dart like and covered in energy absorbing weave, there was no doubt in his mind that this craft would leave the death glider of the Tau'ri in pieces.

Shifting his attention to the new model of armour for his Kull warriors, modeled after the Tau'ri's power armour, this unit packed repeating staff weapons and a pair of staff cannons along with plasma repeaters. His new unit was fitted with gravity drives attached to the back to enable flight, he had also taken the liberty of adding additional armour, the new unit unit now massed four times as much as the heavy Kull he had developed. He had admittedly underestimated the Tau'ri's armour during his initial deployment of the Kull warriors, he had mistakenly believed that the heavy Kull warrior he had built would be able to counter them. He had ignored what the mere ability to fly allowed the Tau'ri to do, being able to slam into your enemy at the speed of sound was an effective way of disabling your targets, no matter how good their armour was.

If only he could figure out how to stop the Kull from crashing, repeatedly. Until he created a Kull warrior that wouldn't crash their armour into the ground shortly after takeoff, the new units would be ready, as it was he was no closer to finding a solution then when he had begun. No matter what kind of genetic programming he put into them the result was the same, they would crash, usually killing themselves and destroying the armour in the process. He would absolutely love to see how the Tau'ri managed to fly their own units with out crashing.

Leaving that particular pain in the nik'ta alone for now, he turned his attention to the latest report from his shipyards. His new flagship was coming along and should be finished in less than a year. Damn Sokar, Ba'al and Yu for destroying his last one, along with all the eyes, and damn the Tau'ri for giving them the chance to do so.

The news concerning the rest of his shipyards was not as promising. He had placed to much faith in his upgraded Ha'tak design, while they were more than a match one on one against any of the other system lords ships, he did not have enough of them. In hindsight he should have created more shipbuilding capacity, he had to give up holdings to prevent stretching his fleet to much, and even then he had almost no reserves that he could use to reinforce any fleet that came under attack.

It didn't help that his attempt at capturing Crecosos had gone so badly, costing him his flagship and almost three dozen Ha'tak. Those shipyards would have been really useful right now, instead they were firmly under Yu's control. It was all going so well, even the sudden appearance of Ba'al and Sokar fleets had not been able to stop his flagship. That had been the case right up until a Tel'ka piloted by a bunch of Tau'ri had dropped out of hyperspace inside his ships shield, where they had then proceed to drop a bomb right by the ships hull before retreating to hyperspace. The blast had destroyed two of the ships 'arms'. The damage had been compounded by the sudden arrival of just over a hundred Ha'tak belonging to Yu, which had then proceeded to destroy his ship, forcing him to retreat, costing him another dozen Ha'tak.

The good news was his enemies destroyed the eyes in the process, and he had crashed the remains of his ship into one of the planets dockyards. The bad news was that in the following weeks he had to abandon several less critical worlds to conserve his fleet strength. At least only Yu, Sokar and Ba'al had fleets significantly larger than his own, though Moloc and Heru'ur were close. Then there were the Tau'ri, which the rest of the system lords seemed content to ignore, despite their repeated interference with the Goa'uld. The latest being the destruction of two of Heru'urs Ha'taks.

He had attempted to destroy the Tau'ri on two different occasions using two different methods, both of which had failed. At the moment he had no convenient way of removing them, and with the protected planets treaty the Asgard would show up and smash his fleet to pieces if he tried the direct approach.

Then it occurred to him, the Tollan weapons worked by exploiting a flaw in Ha'tak shields to be effective, what if the Asgard did the same thing? It would certainly explain how they managed to destroy fleets with ease. He would have to find a way to test his theory without having the Asgard descend upon him if it failed. Time to scheme, which loyal but ultimately useless underling can he afford to lose?

_Ba'als palace, Renvar_

_Musings of a System Lord_

Ba'al looked out over the training field where Jaffa warriors were training with the new equipment he and Nerus had created. The first being a rebuilt Ma'tok staff, following the lines of Tau'ri weapons in how the new weapon was laid out the Ma'tok 'rifles' were held against the shoulder instead of under the arm like the staff they replaced. While they weren't as versatile in melee as the older staffs his Jaffa were scoring hits consistently at more than three times the range as they were getting lucky hits using the staffs. The new design also let them expose less of their body when in a trench making them harder to hit. While it still did not match up to the ranges at which the Tau'ri could hit their targets it was a vast improvement over the weapons most system lords gave their Jaffa. Besides the Tau'ri had more experience using the 'rifle' design than his troops did, over time he felt confident that his Jaffa could match Tau'ri accuracy.

The troops bellow were also wearing new armour that was both cheaper to create and lighter, while it didn't offer any significant amount of protection more than the older style armour it was less restrictive. Still he had no way of countering Anubis's Kull warriors, his redesigned armour was not that much of an improvement over the older style. Nerus had informed him that he was no closer to figuring out the armour used by Anubis then when they had started, he consoled himself in that the other system lords were having just as much trouble working it out as he was.

Luckily he may have something that would allow him to disable if not outright kill the Kull warriors, on the field bellow several of his new ground vehicles were gliding over the ground, far faster than Jaffa or even Kull could run. The vehicle carried two Jaffa, one occupying the 'drivers' position and the other in the 'gunners' position. Little more than a small hull with a small gravity drive and some weapons. The armour on the hull could repel a few staff blasts before being penetrated, however it could move fairly fast and was small enough to fit through the Chappa'ai. He had currently created two distinct types, those that carried a Ma'tok cannon and those that carried four Ma'tok staffs in the 'turret'. The 'drivers' also had access to two Ma'tok staffs that fired forward, he had plans to see about adding a 'mortar' to his new vehicle but had yet come up with a way to do it.

Those were just the additions to his forces, throughout his domain new social changes were being put into place. Jaffa and Human children were being given some education, he had grown weary of his subjects being unable to do the most basic things. He had debated whether to do this during the time of Ra, but had ultimately decided against it, now he was feeling the pain as crucial reports were being delayed, workers unable to understand written messages. Some education would ease many of the problems he had encountered. There was also the medical aid he had begun handing out to the workers in his various factories, skilled laborers who new what they were doing were to valuable to lose on something so silly as disease.

He had also begun rebuilding some of his major cities, mainly to get rid of the waste they generated which was cutting into productivity, but also to get more people into the cities where his factories were located. He was currently looking into ways to increase the amount of food that was produced, at the moment the production was adequate but he needed more, and workers couldn't work without food.

_Replicator occupied world, Ida galaxy_

_Musings of an Old Warrior_

Thor watched as the slug of iron and uranium impacted the replicator block ship scattering blocks across space. A second later he felt a vibration go through the hull as another slug left his ship at near luminal speeds, the shot crossed the few dozen kilometers between the two ships in moments. The second impact tore through the 'engine' of the ship, it immediately began to spiral as the replicators attempted to realign the ship with their desired heading. The sudden change in direction meant that the next slug missed its mark, merely knocking off one of the block spikes protruding from the rear of the ship. He manged to correct his aim and the next shot hit dead center of the mass of replicator blocks, causing them to be sent in every direction.

Most of the blocks would be drawn into the atmosphere of the nearby planet where they would burn up, the rest would have to be disposed of. At the moment the Asgard did not have a way to do so, luckily the blocks scattered through space were relatively harmless.

Detecting no additional hostiles in the immediate area, Thor took a moment to survey the entire field of battle. Of the two dozen or so replicator block ships that had been present, none of them remained, the dozen or so captured ships the replicators had been using were also destroyed. The fleet he had been commanding when they left Orilla had numbered forty ships, only one had sustained damage. The Sigurn had been boarded by replicators, even now the ships Valkyrie's were in the process of clearing the replicators from the ship.

The Valkyries were little more than a floating linear accelerator equipped with a low power shield, they were a disk with a stick attached to the bottom. The Valkyries were part of a project enacted by the council to develop means in which to employ weapons usable by the Asgard that were effective against the replicators. The result had been the Valkyrie anti replicator drone. The two massive linear accelerators on his own ship had been produced by the same project.

As he approached the rest of the fleets he could see the forms of thirty nine O'Neill class ships against the backdrop of the stars and the nearby world, a rock large enough to trap air close to itself but otherwise insignificant. The Sigurn held closest to the planet under the weapons of six of her sister ships, a precaution in case the replicators gained control of the ship. The remaining ships were in the process of removing replicator installations from the planets surface, via being hit with slugs hitting them at near luminal velocities.

The O'Neill class ship was over eighteen hundred meters of destruction intent on removing replicators from existence. Each of them was built around two linear accelerators running the length of the ship, each firing a six tonne slug of iron and uranium. There was also the Tau'ri inspired point defence system, a defence against the replicators main boarding technique. This was all backed by plasma cannons batteries which could tear older ships apart quite quickly, through the shear number carried by each ship and their potency which was several times stronger than older designs. Five reactors powered each ship allowing their shields to take immense punishment. While primarily designed for use against the replicators, Thor believed the O'Neill class ship would fare well against other opponents as well.

The O'Neill class, as demonstrated by this battle, had given the Asgard a temporary edge over the replicators. One Thor intended to push as hard as he could to give the Asgard people as much room and time as possible for when the replicators devised a way to counter the O'Neill class, and strike back at the Asgard. The council for once agreed with his assessment, this planet had been one of four places the Asgard had labelled as targets, the other three fleets, each as large as his own, should be reaching their targets within the next hour.

Ten years ago the Asgard would never have thought of using kinetic weapons to fight the replicators, now the council was fully willing to pursue developments in the kinetic weapons field. The idea had begun when witnessing Tau'ri weapons, primitive chemical slug throwers, destroy replicator 'bugs', something no energy weapon had been able to do. Of course the Asgard couldn't simply use chemical propellant, that would cause to much fouling in the barrels not to mention the added space the propellant would take up. The solution for that came from the Tau'ri as well, the idea of using magnetic rails to accelerate the projectile, and given the ease at which the Asgard could manipulate the forces of magnetism, it wasn't long before they were able to create their own 'rail gun'. Who would have thought a divided non space-faring world would hold the key to giving the replicators the biggest defeat of the entire war.

When the Tau'ri had first made contact with him through the Cimmeria outpost he hadn't believed it would amount to anything much. Now he had visions of what the Tau'ri could do with even half of the technology available to the Asgard, he was seeing what they could with even a few pieces of advice and some advanced technology to study. Ten years from a back water world barely able to leave their own solar system, to a minor interstellar power, survived against a major galactic power, all the while operating with only a mere fraction of their population. If they manged to survive another decade they would be able to take on the might of the Goa'uld without Asgard assistance. He would do what he could to make sure they did survive, they were well on their way to becoming the fifth race after all.

_Undisclosed location, Japan, Earth_

_Musing of Tabanae_

Shinonono Tabanae had to hold herself back to avoid attacking the object of her frustration, so the one-ten millimeter sabot round didn't penetrate. The object of her frustration was a piece of dull black grey metal sitting on a stand, well the floor now I'll have to get a new stand. She had come across this particular curiosity about a year ago, it had apparently been fished out of the pacific after a meteor impact, then eventually it had gotten around to her. Now she needed to replace the stand it had been on as well.

Her research assistants had all backed off, and were now each trying to seem as unobstructive as possible, most likely to prevent her from going down on them. That had only been one time! And Chifuyu had thoroughly told her the consequences should it happen again, after whacking her in the head with a steel binder. Besides it wasn't like she would do that again,... maybe fifty-fifty chance at the moment.

Okay she would probably take the next person who crossed her path at this point, she needed a distraction from this physics defying piece of metal. She had begun moving over to the piece to see if any damage had been inflicted, she had briefly considered using Chifuyu but well, no mater how strong she was she was still human, and thus not stronger than physics defying piece of metal.

She was about halfway to where the stand used to be and where the piece of metal lay on the concrete floor. "Dr. Shinonono, err...maybe you should take a break...and work on something else." She turned her head and focused her eyes on the young woman who had just interrupted her brooding, short with black brown hair tied back into a ponytail. The young woman, Mei-Ling, proceeded to teleport back several meters after meeting eyes with her. "Ssssorry, I.I just thought...it might be...a good idea to take a break now. Yeah, a break."

"Quit stuttering." Honestly it was absolutely annoying.

"Y-y-y-yes." She let out a sigh, there was simply no helping certain people, she blamed it on rampant fangirlisim.

Continuing her journey she arrived at the metal undisturbed by further interruptions, examining the metal she could almost feel the tension building behind her. Despite being repeatedly hit with drill bits, rifle rounds, hammers, rabbits, lasers, plasma, IS units and whatever else she could find, the piece of metal had remained unblemished, it's black-grey surface undamaged. Looking over it again she couldn't see anything different, for the first time ever she welly and truly was stumped, not even the original IS had stumped her as much as a simple piece of metal.

Wait.

There in the rough middle, a dent. The sabot round had created a dent in the metal, she could feel hope rising within her, it wasn't indestructible after all. "There's a dent." She could hear the face palming, oh how she loved to screw with her research team. Before anyone else could say anything, "Sayaka, we need a bigger gun."

For the second time in less than a minute her senior researcher, secretary, procurement specialist face palmed. "Tabanae have you lost the little sanity you have, we have tried everything including the main gun from an Abrams, for no effect. Thi-"

"The one-ten managed to dent it."

Sayaka let out a sigh, "That's not the point, y-"

"Then what is the point?" She had turned around and planted herself firmly in front of Sayaka, who was a full head and a half taller than her, partially ruining her attempt at defiance.

"The point is! We are not attempting anything until you have calmed down and gotten some rest." I wonder why she's angry?

"I'm perfectly fine now!" She could feel her frustration returning, she had just happened upon a solution and now Sayaka wanted to abandon it!

"Tabanae, when was the last time you had any sleep?"

"I dunno" she mumbled in reply, "why does it matter anyways?"

"It matters because you haven't slept in the past week. Mei-Ling, please escort Tabanae to her chambers."

"Y-y-y-yes." The woman walked over and grabbed one of her arms to start leading her off.

"Hey wait a minute, let go of me. And why do you even know the last time I slept? I am perfectly fine! I don't need sleep! Sleep is for the weak!"

"Why, someone has to keep track of how much sleep you miss, besides Chifuyu asked me to try and keep you well rested. I don't intend to disappoint her." More likely don't want to feel her wrath. "And no you aren't fine, you can't even break free of Mei-Ling."

"Hey remember who pays you!"

"You won't be making any money to pay us with if you work yourself to exhaustion." At that point Mei-Ling had finished dragging her out of the firing range, and as they progressed further away from work she came to the realization that damn, she was tired. She got about two steps into her room, sleeping quarters before everything went black.

_Later_

She woke up in her bed wearing her nightshirt, which was funny because she didn't remember changing at all, or getting into bed. Recalling the previous nights events, it was last night wasn't it?, needed to go outside sometime before I lose complete track of time. Which brought her to another development, someone was wrapped around her, with arms and legs wrapped around her body, and she was wearing only a nightshirt. Dammit why couldn't they untangle themselves from her before falling asleep. While she had no problem with staying where she was at the moment, she had something to blow up, and she wouldn't let it remain unexploded any longer then she could manage.

Thankfully Mei-Ling wasn't particularly strong or heavy, so she managed to get out of the bed easily, quickly getting ready, she had an important experiment to do today. While she had originally found it flattering, cute and amusing to be waking up with a random person every day it had quickly lost its amusement factor. And that had been before she found out what they did while they thought she was asleep, did they have no shame.

It had become annoying, besides she had Chifuyu she didn't need anyone else, which brought her back to a question that had been bugging her over the past few years. How the hell did she end up with a harem, and one that didn't include Chifuyu.


	8. Chapter 3-Warriors of Ba'al

_Chapter Three, Warriors of Ba'al_

_Sheng'li, Domain of Yu, March 2015_

Delnag, warrior of Ba'al, piloted his gods new craft through the chappa'ai to the world of Sheng'li in the domain of Yu. It felt odd to be encased in trinium and naquadah while going through the chappa'ai, normally it was only done with armor on. But today was different, his god wished to know how his new craft fared in battle, he would not disappoint his god.

Flying out of the chappa'ai he had to swerve hard to the left to avoid hitting the chappa'ais pedastel, while doing so he crushed several of Yu's Jaffa beneath his craft. His partner, Chosu, manning the four staff weapons mounted atop his craft cut down another half dozen warriors in moments. Moving away from the chappa'ai, he began using the fixed staff weapons to clear the area around the gate, as more and more of Ba'als new craft poured out of the chappa'ai. In less than a minute all the guards around the chappa'ai were dead, all the while and warriors carrying the new 'rifles' arrived and secured the area.

Fifty of Ba'als new craft, and three times that number in warriors. All of them outfitted with the new weapons and armour created by Ba'al. Their target was the small city that housed the refining equipment for the nearby mines. Bringing the craft around he started down the road with half two dozen other craft, it would take Jaffa several hours to march from the Chappa'ai to the city. The other half of the crafts would be carrying the warriors into the city. The craft under his command would quickly attack the city while the remainder brought up the rest of the warriors, from there they would secure the city and then the surrounding mines.

He lead his group down the road towards the city leaving the second slower group behind. It may have taken Jaffa several hours to march to the city, but with the new craft they accomplished the journey in half of one. Approaching the city he noted the wall ringing it, fitted with outward facing staff cannons and perches for Jaffa to shoot down on attackers. The city's gate was also open rendering all of the outward facing defenses useless.

The first sign the residents of the city had of the impending attack was when one of the craft mounted with a staff cannon shot at one of the sentries on the wall. The unfortunate Jaffa was torn apart by the shot, delaying any response of the city by crucial seconds. By the time the defenders became aware of the attack, Delang and his warriors had already brought their craft inside the city wall's through the open gate. His partner cut down several Jaffa who had rushed to defend the gate.

Tasking five craft to stay behind and hold the gate, he ordered the remaining craft to split in to pairs and begin clearing the city of enemy warriors. He lead the other craft in his pair down the central street, heading towards the center of the city. He hadn't gone far before running into and over several warriors who had been rushing towards the gate. He managed to avoid the remaining few warriors that he hadn't hit, and made a mental note to himself to pay more attention to his surroundings.

Swinging his craft back on the desired heading he managed to get almost all the way to the city center before coming before an obstacle. A few dozen Jaffa were hastily erecting a wall made of carts and barrels, reinforced by a few staff cannons. He aimed his craft at an opening that had yet to be filled, all the while his partner fired staff blast at the Jaffa. Several blasts from a staff canon came from behind him and took out the staff cannon emplacements on the barricade.

This time he managed to avoid hitting anything with his craft, moving through the gap and then turning enough to bring his fixed weapons to bear on the Jaffa behind the barricade. One of them managed to get their staff up and put a staff blast into the armor of his craft before being cut down. The barricade had been reduced to broken pieces of wood and corpses in less than a minute, something that would have taken Jaffa almost half an hour to accomplish with significant casualties.

Continuing onwards they encountered no further resistance, as they reached the city center one of the craft he had left at the gate reported that the remaining warriors had arrived. "All units report in." A few dozen voices assaulted his ears, while he could not make out the individuals, the overall message was clear, the city was theirs with minimal resistance encountered. Which was worrying because there was supposed to be over five hundred warriors in the city and surrounding mines, if they had only encountered a few dozen in the city it meant they would have to dig the remainder out of the mines.

"Send pairs out to investigate the mines, the rest of you will secure the city." The Jaffa warriors acknowledged his command, he could not let them notice he was worried. He had learnt long ago that showing no fear inspires confidence. He had two hundred and fifty warriors plus fifty craft against the mines garrisons of roughly a hundred Jaffa each plus whatever miners they armed with them, that made at least four hundred warriors in entrenched positions. He would need more warriors to take the mines away from the warriors of Yu. He turned his craft around and headed to the city gate.

Approaching the gate, he contacted the warriors still there, "Send several craft along with their warriors and secure the chappa'ai, also get me someone to carry a message." Six craft loaded back up the Jaffa they had been carrying, while one of the warriors came up to him as he exited his craft. "Report that we have secured the city but the warriors at the mines have dug in. We require reinforcements to take the mines. Wait at the chappa'ai and inform me once the message has been sent." The Jaffa did a quick salute before climbing onto the side of the nearest craft. The six craft with the aboard messenger left through the gate and towards the chappa'ai.

Turning back to the remaining warriors, "Inform me should anyone approach the gate, if it is the warriors of Yu hold the gate as best you can. If it is our scouts or reinforcements hold them here until I arrive." After acknowledgements and salutes he reentered his craft and began making his way to the warehouse district of the city. They had found several stores of naquadah, he would personally need to see the stores after which he would have to decide what to do with them.

He arrived in the district to find that the Jaffa assigned to the district had already set up a perimeter using carts and several craft. After arriving in front of a warehouse with several of his warriors standing outside he stopped his craft and got out. The Jaffa in front of the door seeing who he was gave a quick salute before opening the door and letting him into the warehouse. Inside he made his way to the back where several warriors were making an inventory list of what was inside the warehouse.

"What have you found?" He asked the first warrior he came to.

"Several blocks of naquadah already prepared for transport, along with several tonnes of trinium, gold, iron, platinum and silver. There could be more, we are still looking through what is in this warehouse, and we have yet to begin checking the other warehouses yet." That was sounded like there would be a fair amount of material here, all of it was on the list issued by lord Ba'al to recover if possible.

"Continue checking what is here, I will send some warriors in to prepare what has already checked for transport." The Jaffa gave him a salute before he turned and left him behind making his way outside, once there he requested some of the other units in non critical areas to come to the warehouse district, more warriors would be required to move the material back to the chappa'ai.

"Delang, one of the scouts has returned." He recognized the voice of the warrior he had left at the gate. "They report that the warriors of Yu have fortified their position at the mine."

"I see, send them back out to keep watch over the mine."

"As you wish." The connection dropped out, it was as he had feared, the warriors of Yu had begun to fortify the mines and would be difficult to remove.

The additional Jaffa he had requested arrived at the warehouse, he lead them inside and to the what had been checked, the mark of Ba'al had been placed on each of the checked crates. "Prepare what is here for transport through the Chappa'ai, report to me once you are finished." With minimal fuss the warriors began loading the checked crates onto several barges for transport. The barges where a thick metal sheet with sides that where lifted into the air, useful for transporting heavy materials overland a distance. At the very least he would acquire what had been destined for Yu and have it serve his lord, and on a selfish note it would help prevent his execution.

_Ba'als palace, Renvar_

Ba'al was observing a holographic map of the galaxy listing all known planets and who they were currently ruled by, if ruled by anyone. He zoomed in to his current planet of interest, the planet Sheng'li in the domain of Yu bordering on his domain. He was anxious to learn of the results of the attack he had sent there and was left wondering if he had sent to few warriors along with Delang to secure the planet. Though he would never ever admit that to anyone but himself. At the moment he decided to distract himself from that line of thought as he could not change what was happening on Sheng'li. Instead he zoomed out the map and began making plans for the coming months and years in his head, most of them would perish half born while others he would make use of.

It was during this pondering that a messenger arrived, he welcomed the distraction as none of his thought plans were going anywhere, besides it might be important. "My lord, we have received word from Delang on Sheng'li, he reports that he has taken the city but that the warriors of Yu have fortified themselves in the mines. He requires reinforcements to take the mines." Ba'al thought on the report for a moment, most of his brethren would look at the immediate failure of Delang to take the mines and simply have him executed.

But Ba'al was different, if the mines had indeed been fortified then the forces Delang had available would be insufficient to take the mines. Besides it was hard to come by warriors who displayed common sense, which Delang had proven he had, firstly by not going after an objective that he would almost surely fail to achieve and secondly he had not jeopardized what he had already gained on blindly following orders. Despite how much Ba'al wished his orders to be followed, if they should prove detrimental to him, he was willing to let them be ignored in the face of changing circumstances. He would let Delang live for now and see if the Jaffa warrior could indeed

"Head to the barracks and gather up six hundred warriors trained in the new ways and tell them to gather at the chappa'ai. Then head over to the armory and have the warriors there prepare a hundred of the new craft for deployment." He really needed to give a name to the craft, it was becoming annoying to simply call it the craft besides being possibly confusing.

"But my lord Delang failed at his task, why would you accept his request for reinforcements?"

"Because those are my orders, and unless you wish to go to Sheng'li as well you will carry them out."

"Yes my lord." With that the messenger disappeared to hopefully carry out his orders, he would accept some ignoring of his orders by commanders in the field, but not by messengers.

_Later_

As Ba'al approached Renvar's chappa'ai he could see the gathered Jaffa warriors and craft preparing to leave. All of the Jaffa were using the new equipment he had created, and their numbers looked about what he had requested, six hundred warriors and a hundred craft. A part of his mind noted that he should have just sent the massive force assembled here instead of one less than a third the size, he informed that section of his mind to remain silent. Eight hundred Jaffa warriors stood ready and waiting to go to Sheng'li to aid Delang secure the planet.

At the moment they were waiting, why where they still waiting? He had his answer when the chappa'ai came into view. It was currently open with the standing water disgorging a caravan of barges guided by warriors holding the new rifles he had developed. Which was strange because he had not yet issued them to any of his resource gathering operations, just to border garrisons and his army. Walking down to the assembly area around the chappa'ai, he made his way to the front of the barge train, the warrior was dressed in the new style armor. It occurred to him that giving different units different armor colors or designs may make them distinguishable from one another allowing him to identify which unit the warrior came from.

"My lord, Delang ordered us to escort the shipment naqudah we found on Sheng'li here. He does not believe he will be able to take the mines and wishes to ensure that all of the materiel he has recovered is used in your service, we have a list of what is in the crates." The warrior held out a rolled sheet of parchment to him. So Delang had taken the initiative to turn what was supposed to be an invasion into a large raid, while not what he wanted it still got him the materials he would have gotten once the invasion was finished anyway. Still he wanted to take the planet not just raid it.

"Turn this over to the quartermaster then you and your brothers who returned with this shall return to Sheng'li. And see to it that the quartermaster receives the list."

"Yes my lord, it shall be done." With that the Jaffa lead the train off.

He then went and located the current commander of the force of Jaffa, the Jaffa was standing on a balcony overlooking the assembly area. As he approached the Jaffa gave a bow. "My Lord. What are your orders." Normally he would have been annoyed at the Jaffa for questioning his orders, but seeing as he had come in person, the commander may believe that I have changed my mind, or wish to give additional orders.

"You are to take your force to Sheng'li and there you are to place you and your warriors under the command of Delang." The warrior, Jamai'c if he recalled did not look pleased but did not speak out, he evidently did not agree.

"It will be done My Lord," the Jaffa wasn't happy, but so be it, he was giving Delang one last chance to redeem himself. "What of those who returned with the caravan?"

"They will accompany you to Sheng'li." The warrior's face remained emotionless, perhaps he saw it as a good decision, no matter.

"As you wish My Lord, it shall be done." With that the warrior gave a quick bow before turning and leaving the balcony where they had been. He made his way to the front of the assembled warriors, as the chappa'ai activated. Turning around he lead the warriors through the chappa'ai as Ba'al looked on.

It took almost fifteen minutes for the assembled warriors and craft to pass through the chappa'ai. After which Ba'al made his way back to his palace, making plans to send several Ha'taks to Sheng'li to prevent Yu from quickly retaking the world.

_Sheng'li_

Jamai'c steeped out of the chappa'ai on Sheng'li and was greeted by the sight of five craft and maybe two dozen warriors around the chappa'ai bearing the mark of Ba'al. Stepping off to one side to let the other warriors deploy from the chappa'ai, Jamai'c made his way over to the nearest Jaffa who had been here when the rest of them arrived. "Where is Delang?"

"He is at the city master. Do you wish transportation there?"

"Yes," indicating to the warriors coming from the chappa'ai, "send them onto the city as well."

"As you wish." With that the warrior waved over one of the craft which he boarded with three of his warriors. The craft them sped of for the city.

The craft sped along as he held on as tightly as he could, Ba'al had decreed that the craft were to slow down when carrying passengers. Many had thought it foolish, he understood now, Ba'al was truly wise to have understood that without having ever experienced it.

On the way they passed another caravan of barges loaded with crates, most likely more material recovered from Yu.

Delang had left three craft and a dozen Jaffa at the gate to the city. He was of the opinion that more warriors should have been assigned to that duty, but he was aware of how many warriors Delang had begun with. Casualties and other duties may have left him shorthanded, he suddenly understood why the commander was being given another chance.

The guards moved aside to let them pass while their craft made it's way through the streets to the city center. They stopped in front of a relatively large building, most likely belonging to who had ruled the city before. Several other craft were outside with several Jaffa running back and forth, as he dismounted two of them had Jaffa come out of the building and climb onto them before leaving. Another one arrived and what must have been a messenger got off and headed inside.

There were maybe a dozen guards inside the building, once they entered they were challenged by one of them. "Identify yourself."

"I am Master Jamai'c, here to see master Delang. I come from Renvar with orders from Lord Ba'al."

"Follow me then." The guard still looked suspiciously at him and the Jaffa he had brought. The remaining guards were on alert and watching the group. He lead them up a few flights of stairs and down a hallway on one of the wings, all the while Jamai'c could see some of the guards trialling them at a distance. They were going down the hallway when the Jaffa he saw arrive earlier exited a room on their right before scrambling past them and continuing on back down the stairs that they had come up.

Entering the room he saw Delang standing over a map of what was most likely a map with several markers spread over it, most likely detailing important positions. Delang looked up from the map and studied them, Jamai'c got his first good look at Delang, and in his opinion Delang looked tired.

"Master Delang, I am Master Jamai'c, I have come from Renvar with orders from lord Ba'al." He had to give Delang credit, the Jaffa master did not show what was going through his mind.

"Let us hear them then." There was a hint of resignation in the Jaffa's voice.

"Lord Ba'al has sent me and eight hundred Jaffa warriors to assist you in capturing this world." There was a flash of surprise across Delang's face that was quickly suppressed. "We have been placed under your command, to carry out this task."

"You said eight hundred Jaffa, how many craft did you bring?"

"One hundred. At the moment they are waiting at the chappa'ai for instructions."

Delang turned to one of the Jaffa in the room, "Go to the chappa'ai and have the newly arrived warriors come to the city." The Jaffa gave a quick salute before heading out the door. "I wish you had brought your warriors to the city with you, but I cannot change what has happened. I can only change what will happen."

"What makes you wish the warriors I brought with me were in the city?" Instead of responding immediately, Delang gestured for him to come over to the map.

"To begin, our hold on the city itself is weak, their have been no attempts to remove our warriors as of yet, but I fear that if we begin to lose our hold the populace will attack us. Which brings us to our current problem, the Jaffa from the southern mine left the mine and marched on the city along with around a hundred armed workers. Fifty warriors and eight craft have stopped them here," Delang pointed to the map to a position about halfway between the mine and the city. "Our warriors are holding for now, but I fear that won't last, and I am hesitant to pull warriors from other duties to assist them. I was removing materiel from the warehouses as a precaution against loosing the city."

"I see. What do you intend to do now that you have the warriors necessary?"

"Once the warriors arrive at the city I will send a group of two hundred, all on crafts around the rear of Yu's warriors, from there they should have no problems defeating the warriors. Once we have put them down capturing the southern mine should be a simple task. Once and if we have captured the southern mine, I plan on capturing the south-eastern mine. It is the closest one to the chappa'ai as well as being in our rear when we go after the other mines."

"What of the northern and western mines?"

"For now they are under watch, if something changes I will revise our strategy. Until then there is little else we can do against them until the southern and south-eastern mines are secured."

"You are aware that Ha'taks belonging to Yu could arrive any day now."

"I am aware, however there is little I can do at the moment that would lessen the impact Ha'taks belonging to Yu would have on this campaign."

"Very well, I am offering to lead your two hundred warriors behind Yu's warriors."

"Very well, you will have command of the warriors, pick out those you think would best serve you as well." With that Jamai'c gave a short salute before turning around and leaving the room. He headed back down the stairs and outside of the building where the craft that had dropped him off was still waiting. He spent a moment and looked around, the sky was beginning to take on an orange red hue as day began to fade to night.

_Nagurash, Domain of Ba'al_

Nerosh ducked his head back down into the trench as another burst of plasma passed through the space his head had occupied a second earlier. He stood back up for a brief instant to shoot at the advancing Kull before dropping back down into the trench. Up and down the line other Jaffa took shots at the Kull before ducking back down, occasionally one would be a little to slow and get hit by plasma fire and go down.

It had been three hours sense the dozen or so Kull and three 'heavy' Kull had come through the chappa'ai, in that time they had managed to got through almost all the warriors sent to fight them. He had been at the first defensive line when it had fallen, and only the Kull's slow pace had allowed the survivors to retreat and set up a second if crude trench line. And given that the Kull had yet to even slow down their advance, this line would soon fall as well.

The original line had had several of Ba'als new craft supporting it, but the 'heavy' Kull had used their shoulder and arm mounted cannons to destroy them, along with the Udajeets that had been sent out. Their cannons were even now blasting apart the hurriedly dug trenches in order to expose the defenders, they had originally killed any clumps of warriors but with the casualties sustained warriors weren't even pairing up anymore.

He brought himself up again and loosed another shot at the closet warrior. The gold-yellow blast hit the black armor and dissipated without leaving a mark. And as fast as he was up again he back down in the trench, sweat fell from his brow and his stomach growled with hunger. He was tired, hungry and exhausted, yet as a Jaffa warrior of the Gods he would persevere. Tacking another shot he noted that none of the other warriors appeared to be tacking shots, though that could just be because he didn't stay up long enough to see them. Though that he wasn't hearing anything made him worry.

As he made his way around the trenches the reason for the lack of fire became obvious, besides him the remaining warriors were all dead. It was time to pull back, he might be able to make it back to the garrison and warn them about the Kull. Risking a look out of the trench he noted that the Kull warriors had maintained their pace and were almost upon the trench line.

Ducking back down he carefully made his way along the trench line to the point furthest from the Kull. Feeling that now would be his best chance to get away, Nerosh jumped out of the trench and ran as hard as he could into the forest. He had barely gotten eight steps when an explosion right to his left flung him into a tree. The impact drove the air from his lungs, his weapon had been ripped from his hands by the force of the explosion. He barely remembered hitting the ground before loosing conscious.

_Later_

Something moving his shoulder caused a spike of pain that brought him to consciousness, he felt as though he had just finished a sparring session with his old master. Every part of his body felt sore, and his back felt as though it was on fire, breathing caused his chest to burn with the fires of sokar. Something moved his shoulder again and he brought himself around to opening his eyes, this created more pain in his already battered head. Upon opening his eyes all he could see was white, after blinking a few times he managed to make out several black blobs moving around.

His hearing returned with a screech that felt like it was going to tear his head in half. "-re you alive brother," he could hear several other voices as well. In response he tried to bring his hand up to his shoulder, he only succeeded in hitting himself in the head with his armored fist. 'Well you aren't dead, time to get moving. Lord Ba'al may wish to speak to you." He was lifted upright from his shoulders, immediately pain shot through his body. He managed to swallow the cry of pain that attempted to escape from his mouth, instead he clenched his jaw causing himself yet more pain.

His legs refused to do as he commanded causing him to fall back down to the ground when his 'rescuers' decided to let him walk on his own. They had then settled on dragging him between them back to wherever they had come from. He hoped they were warriors of Ba'al as they claimed but at the moment he had no way of confirming it. His eyesight was slowly recovering he could now make out colors though everything was still blurry, and he couldn't make out any details.

He had managed to figure out that they weren't heading towards the chappa'ai, but rather away from it, which lead him to conclude that they were heading towards Nagurash's main city. Which inclined him to believe his 'rescuers' that they indeed served Ba'al, or that the city had fallen while he was out. Which seemed unlikely as the time it would take to do so would have left him dead.

_Renvar_

Ba'al was worried, his scouts had just reported back that there had been an attack on Nagurash, but as of yet they could not determine by whom. There had been no enemy corpses left behind that would make it easy to identify the perpetrators. That alone was reminiscent of a Tau'ri attack, but the weapons used belonged to Goa'uld not Tau'ri. Besides Tau'ri never launch attacks against populated worlds, so that left some Goa'uld who had managed to get through his defenses without taking significant casualties.

With the assault on Sheng'li had slowed down as Delang consolidated his hold on the inhabited areas of the planet. Reinforcements were already in route in the form of a few dozen Ha'taks, hopefully they would arrive before Ha'tak's belonging to Yu arrived. He had also sent another thousand Jaffa to Sheng'li, which left him without enough warriors to counter this latest incursion without weakening his line in other places. He had plenty of warriors trained in the old style available, but they were more suited to guard duty behind the lines and intimidation than actual fighting.

He had reviewed Delang's initial report from Sheng'li had demonstrated the abilities of his new craft, while it hadn't been the line crusher he had hoped it would be. Breaking through entrenched positions, allowing the remaining warriors to pass through the gap. Delang had discovered the crafts true potential, going around defensive lines, harassing the enemy's flanks and moving warriors quickly between positions.

Why hadn't he realized earlier, he didn't need to send some massive force to Nagurash, he just needed to send enough craft to disrupt the attackers attack. He had been thinking in terms of his craft breaking their way through enemy lines, rather than going around them and attacking the vulnerable rear. He had planned on calling his new craft 'Breakers', but it seemed the more apt name would be 'Speeders'.

Summoning a messenger Ba'al sent him off with orders to gather a few dozen craft, and have them gather at the chappa'ai. As the messenger left to carry out his duties, Ba'al pondered how best to put his new idea into practice. Training would have to change, but even changes to the training regime would not help him now. He needed something else.

_Nagurash_

Nerosh surveyed the gathered party he had been placed in command of, by virtue of being the oldest surviving warrior. The Kull had gone through the remaining warriors quickly, the city had been left intact, more through the Kull's lack of destructive tendencies than anything the defenders had done. That left him and roughly a hundred warriors to find a way to stop them, at the moment they were in a warehouse near the northern gate of the city.

The Kull had passed through onto some other distant target, what they were after was beyond him. But the same question repeated itself through his head again and again, what did Anubis plan to accomplish with this attack. There had been no additional forces sent through, and no ships had arrived, so what had been the purpose. He could understand if they were going through to destroy the city and the materiel being held in its warehouses. But the Kull had simply gone in one side of the city and out the other without bothering anything of value. It was truly perplexing.

For now his plan was to reach the chappa'ai, lord Ba'al had to know of this.

It was a simple matter to move out of the city and onto the road that lead to the chappa'ai, he still felt nervous about it. If there was an army moving behind the Kull this would be the road that they would take. Still he valued speed more than anything else, and they could always leave the road if necessary.

It was while jogging down the road that the craft found them, there must have been a few dozen of them coming from the direction of the chappa'ai. While most of the craft stopped a fair distance back, the lead craft came forward to just in front of him, the secondary jumped out onto the ground in front of him. "Identify yourselves in the name of lord Ba'al."

"I am Nerosh, commander of this group of warriors." He actually felt relieved that others had arrived to take command of the situation, he had no idea what he should be doing.

"What has transpired here?"

"Kull there were a dozen of them plus three new variants armed with cannons, they went through any defense we could create."

"Those foul things, damn Anubis and his creations to Netu, I will send you back to lord Ba'al so you may inform him what has transpired. Now tell me where are the Kull now?"

"They passed through the city about an hour ago heading west. But you can't mean to engage them? The craft we had were destroyed with ease."

"I have my orders from lord Ba'al, and I will carry them out."

"And what are your orders?"

"Search and Destroy."


	9. Chapter 4-Orientation

_Chapter Four, Orientation_

_Earth, Area 51, Above Ground Hangar, March 2015_

Colonel Cameron Mitchell looked over some of the best fighter pilots their respective countries had to offer. Just under a hundred men and women stood before him, Britain, Germany, Japan, and China had each sent twelve of their best fighter crews to be the next pilots for the F302 Fighter-Interceptor. He was currently standing on one of the fighters looking over the assembled flight crews. They had divided themselves into blocks based on country of origin, the pilots were all standing in a row with their respective operators behind them. They all radiated the aura of envy at the 302 he was standing on, they wanted to get the talking out of the way and get flying. There was also skepticism as fighter aircraft had largely been declared obsolete a few years ago, courtesy of the IS. Well today they learn why the fighter had not gone obsolete, but was had become the king of the skies.

"Welcome ladies and gents to your orientation of the F302 Fighter-Interceptor, I'm Colonel Cameron Mitchell USAF, and this," indicating to the man standing behind and to the left of him, "is-."

"Captain George Beurling, RCAF. And we're here to teach you louts how to fly a real fighter plane, not those aero only things you've been flying." Several chuckles rose from the people who got the joke, the rest just looked confused.

"And the star of the show, the thing you traveled from all over to meet," jumping down of the fighter and giving it a pat, "is the F302 Fighter-Interceptor. Second generation aero-space fighter craft, you can take of from here head to the ISS and back again without any boosters or heat shields."

"Provided you aren't idiotic about it."

"Well there is that. Now I know you're all itching to get in the air, but first we have to put the pilots through the simulators first." There were several halfhearted groans. "Operators will be going up with me and Beurling later, but first. Any questions?"

"Yeah I got one. Why are we even bothering with fighters. I mean come on IS can do all the things a fighter can do and more." Mitchell looked at Beurling.

"You want to handle this one or should I."

"Don't mind either way, go ahead."

"Well how about this, the top cruising speed of high speed IS units is just over mach two, on a good day. The F302 does mach thirteen on a bad day, on a good day you could be hitting up to mach seventeen. Now can an IS do that." The crowd in front of him was starring in disbelief, Beurling just had on the biggest possible grin his face could support.

"Before any of you jabber on about how the IS is almost invisible to modern sensors, remember the 302 is equipped with a sensor suit that would make the researchers at SERN green with envy. So not only do you have a higher top speed than any IS unit you can nail them BVR as well."

"For weapons the F302 has six under wing hard-points each capable of carrying up to four missiles a piece, along with two under the fuselage that can hold two apiece and an internal bomb bay. Each craft also has two fifty millimeter half kilogram railguns mounted in the fuselage. Maximum missile range is about forty five kilometers, expect about half that during combat with anyone halfway decent at ECM. Also don't expect to hit anything with your guns over kilometer, even with the computer helping you chances of hitting at that range are slim. And I doubt any of you are named Buerling." The cadets all turned to Beurling, obviously confused.

"What so special about him."

"He is a freak of nature, and the only one who has ever managed a BVR gun kill with the F302."

"I thought you said that was impossible?"

"Not impossible just really hard, and besides Beurling here is the exception to the rule. He nails whatever he's aiming at, he routinely gets kills at several hundred meters."

"I'm not that good."

"Yeah, then where did all those death gliders below your canopy come from."

"Someone put more of them on then they should have, nothing more." Cameron just let out a sigh, continuing this conversation would accomplish nothing.

"Moving on, simulators are in the room to your right, now we only have sixteen at the moment so you will have to take turns. For those of you waiting we have prepared an information package that you can go over, it has details on all of the F302s systems. Operators, you may want to go over this as it details many of the crafts backseat equipment." In a semi orderly fashion the cadets filled of to the right, where most of them picked up the info package. He idly wondered how they were tacking learning that they weren't alone in the galaxy and that they would be fighting against a technologically superior foe. Scratch technologically superior at the moment the only real advantage the Goa'uld have is a lot more population and industrial base.

_Later_

He and Beurling flew through the virtual skies inside the simulator, it looked fairly impressive but nowhere near the quality of modern video games. But rather most of the effort was being put into simulating the F302 inside the environment, it wasn't an exact match for actual combat but it was sure close.

Both of them were up against the sixteen cadets in the downstairs simulators, the cadets were unaware of their presence at the moment. But that would soon change when they started the mock battle, and if they were paying attention they might actually have time to fight back. Taping a button on the side of the central display the combat simulation began, immediately sixteen red dots appeared on his sensor display. The cadets would be seeing two dots representing him and Beurling closing in from the high ground, and at this range they were well within the F302s sensor bubble, hell he could make them out at this distance.

He managed to lock up the nearest craft and let loose an air to air missile before they had even begun to maneuvering. He had to give them credit, once they realized they were under attack they moved pretty fast for a group that had been barely flying for an hour. Suddenly Beurling let of a burst from his guns and the fighter he had locked up disappeared from the simulation, his missile acting like a real one exploded after it's lock on disappeared. For the love of god Beurling, quit showing off, he could just imagine the man's grin at stealing the kill.

The cadets had all come about now and were lining up shots on his and Beurling's craft, their response was to draw more power out of the engines and close the gap faster. The cadets were not expecting that, even so one of them managed to get a missile of before he got into knife fighting range. The trick to evading missiles was to wait to the absolute last second before maneuvering so that the missile would blow by and lose it's target lock. He waited until he could make out the head of the missile before snapping the fighter hard to the left. The missile exploded right behind his craft peppering it with shrapnel, damage alarms went of inside the simulators cockpit.

Switching back to the left he avoided a burst of fire from one of the other trainees, at this range it was difficult to get a missile lock. He managed to manoeuvre himself into position by using his more intimate familiarity with the F302 to take out one of the cadets going after Beurling. Doing a quick check on his sensor screen he confirmed only twelve targets left, when had Beurling taken out the other two?

Bringing his craft around in the tightest turn he could manage, he caused one of the cadets to overshoot their target, him. Turning even tighter he managed to draw a bead on the cadet who had just tried to down him, a quick burst was all he could manage before they blew by each other. He didn't get to see if he actually hit as he was soon on the defensive again as two more cadets came at him from above. Jinking to the right and down caused them to miss their targets, while cutting his airspeed put him at their six. A quick burst hit one of them forcing the craft down, he didn't have time to get a burst of at the second craft as he was forced away by a burst from one of the other cadets.

His momentum drew his bead across another of the cadets fighters, without any hesitation he let off a burst that caused the craft to spiral out of control. He cut a tight as turn as he could to bring the battle back into focus, just in time for him to roll out of the way to avoid being shot out of the air by three of the cadets. Completing his roll he dived down to regain lost airspeed, the three cadets followed him down. At the bottom of his dive he pulled sharply up and to the right before hitting the afterburners, climbing rapidly. The cadets tried to bring themselves around but it was to late, stalling at the top of his climb Mitchell looped over so he now had all three of them in his sights. Two quick bursts knocked two of them out of the sky while the third managed to get out of the way, only to be downed by a burst from Beurling.

A quick check of his screen showed him and Beurling to be the last two in the air. "What happened to the rest of them?"

"Looks like three of them slammed themselves into the ground, and we got the rest of them."

"I only tagged four maybe five of them, and only two confirmed went down, so that means you got the other eight. Which somehow I find difficulty believing."

"Well I can tell you right now your kill count is four, I had to finish that one you left hanging." He would definitely have to go through the logs later and see what happened.

_Underground Hangar_

Major Paul Davis followed the multinational delegation as they walked along the corridors beneath area fifty one. At the moment they were heading down towards the underground bays that were being used to construct the new Prometheus class vessels as well as a bay dedicated to the construction of the Daedalus.

They emerged from the corridor onto one of the catwalks running between bays, one of the near completed Prometheus class was of to the left while the Daedalus was to the right. The Prometheus class was almost ready for launch, technicians were just now doing final checks on all systems, estimates put her launch just after the beginning of April. The Daedalus was little more than an incomplete frame, and a reactor at the moment, she was still several months away from completion.

The Prometheus's hull was little more than a box with a tower bridge at one end and a tapered front at the other end, two boxes attached to the bottom housed the vessels hangar bays. There was an addition right in front of the tower that raised the rearmost BHSG above the forward BHSG. The tower was a box at the end of the hull with two 'arms' protruding out and forwards of the tower. Antennae were located on the front of the vessel, protruding from the top of the vessel and from the tops of the hangar bays. Two BHSGs dominate the top of the vessel, the weapons were almost forty meters in length and rose up from the hull over a dozen meters. Mostly due to their turret mounts, which alone stood three meters high and a dozen round.

"The Prometheus line of ship measures three hundred and six meters in length, one hundred and forty nine meters wide and one hundred and sixty eight meters wide. Power is provided by two fusion power plants, one located above the main engines and one located at the front of the ship. Forward thrust is provided by a pair of ion engines each capable of moving the mass of a super-carrier. To manoeuvre, there are thirty six gravity anti-gravity emitters located around the ship, thanks to the onboard computer systems the emitters work in concert with each other to achieve maximum efficiency."

"The main armament is two BHSGs and six missile tubes, the BHSGs can fire six shots before needing to recharge and thanks to the fusion reactor powering them, they can be recharged in around seven to ten minutes. The missile tubes can carry a multitude of dot seven five by fifteen missiles, mainly nuclear along with MIRVs and UASVs. Secondary armament consists of two plasma projectors and twenty four, dot five kilo railguns. Each plasma projector consists of a dozen plasma cannons mounted to a single turret, the cannons can either be set to a high or low degree of separation. Resulting in either an area of effect or small area saturation, they are situated on either side of the forward section of hull. The railguns are positioned on the hull so that there is no blind-zone outside of the shield bubble. The railguns themselves fire half kilogram slugs at a rate of one hundred and twenty a minute, and at a velocity of mach two dot five."

"There are six anti air missile launchers located on the arms and on the flight pods. The missile uses a combination of radar, heat and gravity to track its target."

"The onboard fighter squadron is split between the two flight pods with eight on each side. While it is possible to fit more fighters onboard, it was decided to use the extra room to house the machinery necessary to fabricate replacement parts for the fighter squadrons and the ship itself. Each pod has a retractable door that is normally closed, when it is open a low end shield prevents air from escaping the inside of the flight pod."

"Protection comes form the ships shields which are fully capable of taking multiple nuclear strikes in a short period of time without losing integrity. The ship's armor is made of a trinium, titanium, carbon, naquadah plating strong enough to withstand large caliber anti-armour rounds, as well as a special coating that reflects energy to reduce the damage done by directed energy weapons and plasma."

"The Prometheus class has an average cruising speed of dot eight light years per second, which can be pushed up to one dot three light years per second. Though this puts extra strain on the hyperdrive which can cause a burn out if done to often or for to long."

"The four ships that you can see behind me will be launching this April to join the USS Prometheus, Bodsky, and HMCS Kanata. With their launch we will have seven ships at our disposal for the defense of earth. Now in front of me is the still under construction USS Daedalus, current projection place its launch in the mid to late summer of this year. The Daedalus will be a second generation ship constructed by earth, current drafts have her measuring at approximately six hundred meters in length. When she is launched fleet command for multi ship operations will be transferred over form the Prometheus. In essence the Daedalus will become the new flagship of the earth fleet."

"Any questions?"

"What does BHSG stand for?"

"I actually don't know, some Colonel came up with it and we've called it that ever since. Personally I just go with plasma cannon."

"I see." Well he couldn't blame the guide for not wanting to spell it out, O'Neill had a very very strange naming scheme. How it had ever got put on the official forms was beyond him.

_Offices, Suite 253_

Dr. Rodney Meredith McKay sorted through the multitude of papers on his desk and on his tablet, desperately trying to put some order back into the office space. Most of the files were on the Aile Blanche, the third generation Canadian IS unit that he had designed and engineered, from scratch. Though he never got why they were using french for it, come on couldn't it just be White Wing and not something that only some people would get. Oh and the best part, it would be making it's debut at the IS academy, where it would remain for three years before actually doing something useful. That's not even taking into account that the pilot they chose is a complete air head who was only chosen because they have a high IS resonance. Even Russia managed to get it right and was sending someone halfway qualified to pilot the their third generation IS the Buster.

Of course no one acknowledged the potential in the Aile at all despite it being able to do any job that you would need an IS for. Carter's Blitz and the Russian's Buster were specialist units and were well equipped to deal with their roles, the Blitz being a close combat specialist and the Buster being little more than mobile artillery. What they couldn't do was act effectively outside of their specialization, the Aile could be a close in combat unit, an artillery unit or a support unit. While remaining decent at all roles required of it.

A knock interrupted his thoughts, and he quickly gave the desk some semblance of order, it was still covered in papers but at least they looked organized to the untrained eye. "Come in." The man who opened the door was dressed in a black business suit, his facial features were oriental. Chinese or Japanese by the look of it.

"Dr. McKay I presume." The man stepped in and closed the door.

"Yes. Have a seat." The man took the chair opposite him. "I assume you're here for something."

"Yes. The Japanese government wishes to know if you would be available to help us with a certain project."

"Depends on what the project is, the Canadian government may not give me the time to pursue your project."

"I have already spoken with your government, and they have given their permission for you to be on this project. I came here to offer you the position."

"What do you want me for?"

"You were one of the minds behind the third generation IS Aile Blanche, were you not. We are looking at developing a third generation IS unit similar to the ones America, Russia and Canada have created."

"I'm surprised you did not simply go to Dr. Carter or Dr. Shinonono, given the way everyone simply fawns over their work."

"Dr. Shinonono is eccentric, and my government does not trust her with sensitive information, additionally she has turned down all other research offers given to her. She would most likely turn this one down as well. And Dr. Carter is an American, and given recent events they are not fully trusted, besides she has other complications."

"Well you have my attention, so when does this project start." It felt good to be chosen over his peers for a project.

_IS Academy, Japan_

Cassandra Fraiser stifled a yawn that was trying to worm its way out of her. She had arrived at the academy yesterday afternoon after a slow flight from America, slow when compared to most flying objects she was familiar with. She had spent the remainder of the day unpacking and becoming acquainted with the academy's layout. There was still a week before classes started and she had gone over the materiel at least a dozen times. She had just finished trying to move one of her textbooks around without touching it with some success.

It was just after noon and she was feeling a little bored, lunch had been gotten from the cafeteria and had consisted of a simple meat sandwich. More to replenish her energy after her morning workout, the track here was big enough that she only had to go around three times instead of the five that she could do at the field by her house.

At the moment she had the room to herself, though that would change by the time classes started, which meant she didn't have to worry when she was manipulating objects with her mind. With nothing better to do she grabbed her laptop from one of her dresser doors turned safe. Placing it on her desk she tried to open it with her mind. When that inevitability failed she settled on opening it the old fashioned way, popping it open and hitting power. The laptop was a Carter special, well the hardware was at least, she had gone to Hailey to get software as she did not want to end with a Carter special OS. Carter's OS would have been some amalgamation of Goa'uld, Asgard and Human programming that wouldn't work with the majority of terran software, Windows nine was boring but it was consistent, and tech support wasn't limited to just Carter. A laptop didn't have to be programmed to the same extreme as a spaceship.

Boot up happened while she blinked, Carter may not have been able to create software that was useable by everyone, but damn it was an absolute beast. Hailey had done some extra tweaking to the OS to let Win9 take full advantage of the processing power available. One password later and she was in, her main screen was covered with icons for various applications. I really need to sort this out one of these days.

Hitting the internet she started by browsing her way through the latest developments coming out of the Gateway Initiative, some of it had been a part of the SGC for years. Crystal based computers, using one right now, not some new breakthrough. Most of it was actually new, gathering the greatest minds together had already produced some new stuff, anti-mater generation cycle, anti-matter reactors, theoretical processes for terraforming. After going through the myriad of scientific articles she opened up Worlds, an MMORPG, which was officially based on the Tv show Wormhole Extreme. Unofficially it was based on the SGC and all the interesting adventures Jack and crew got up to, though there were several artistic differences to make it seem like it was based on the official source.

Diving into the virtual world, or would it be galaxy in this case, as Cas, bounty hunter, mercenary, and adventurer. She joined a few million players in their various adventures across the virtual galaxy, in various adventures and quests, and the occasional developer challenge. Also known as something the SGC figures it needs at lot of people working on, but doesn't have the time or people to throw at it.

_Later_

A few hours later she made her way down to the cafeteria for some supper, she had ended up stuck on one of the challenges and needed food and a break. As she approached the cafeteria she noted that it seemed louder than when she had been their last night, could just be more students here. Entering the cafeteria she could see a rather large amount of students all gathered around one area, it seemed like all of them were talking at the same time. She was no slouch when it came to Japanese, courtesy of Daniel, but with so many people talking at once it just blurred together.

She let out a sigh, finding out what was going on would have to wait until people calmed down. "So what's this latest commotion about?" that had to be the most arrogant haughtiest voice she had ever heard. The speaker was a first year, judging by their uniform, long blond hair partially tied back, and a pose that just plain reeked of arrogance. Oh, and she was being the one addressed, damn, the absolute last kind of person I want to be dealing with right now. My stomach is on the verge of growling.

She wished she could just ignore this person and move on, but her mother had insured that she had passable manners, even when it came to people she would rather not deal with. "Sorry to disappoint but I just got here, I wish someone would tell me what this is all about." The girl just turned back to the crowd, who were still energetic over something she couldn't figure out.

They stood there trying to figure out what was going on when a figure wiggled out from underneath the edge of the crowd. The figure stood up and she came face to face with Orimura Ichika, a little worse for wear, well that explained the crowd. Poor guy, ambushed while getting supper, she wondered when he got here. He then noticed the two of them standing there and the most 'oh shit' face she had ever seen appeared on the guy's face. She really wished she had brought her cellphone with her, that face was absolutely priceless.

Instead she took some pity on him, pointing her thumb at the door, "I suggest you get moving before they realize their prize slipped away." A quick bow and he practically ran out the door.

"Now why'd you do that?" The girl standing beside her was giving her a questioning look.

"I kinda felt bad for him," she admitted, "besides I would feel bad for tacking advantage of him like that. Now I don't know about you but I'm going to get something to eat." With that she headed over to the buffet that had been set out, the other girl, I should get her name soon, took one last look at the crowd before following her.

Picking up a plain but edible plate of steak and vegetables with a bowl of rice, before heading to a table she grabbed herself a glass of water from the fountain drink stand. Picking an out of the way table that was unoccupied she made her way over to it, the other girl followed her. "I don't believe I got your name."

"Oh, it's Cecilia Alcot," Cecilia held out her hand.

Taking it she replied, "Cassandra Fraiser. So when did you get here?"

"Just this afternoon, this is supper and not lunch right?"

"Yeah it's supper, let me guess jet lag." Cecilia just nodded. "Had that happen to me yesterday, a good nights sleep helps."

"I'll try that. So what do you think of him?"

"Who?"

"Orimura Ichika, the only male IS pilot, the one you just rescued form a mob." She wouldn't use the word rescue for what she had done, or rather didn't do. And right on cue the commotion starts up again as the entire mob now realizes it's quarry has left.

"You know what, I think the universe hates him. He gets mobbed while trying to eat, probably has people watching over him day and night, and there probably isn't a person on in this academy who doesn't know who he is. The universe should cut him some slack." Or Tabanae in all of her 'wisdom' could help him out.

"Well that was more than I was expecting. Personally he seems like the kind of guy I despise, no ambition just taking everything he's given, and then constantly running away."

"Cut him some slack, I doubt you would do any better if you were mobbed while trying to eat, ambushed everywhere you go and are stranded in a place where everyone else is the opposite gender. He's managed to keep his pants so I would say he's not doing to bad so far."

"I hadn't thought about it like that. You think he might be an okay person?"

"Maybe, but not here. Here he' just going to be endlessly harassed, I can see the reasoning for sending him here, but honestly it's going to be hell for him. At least until more guy attend the academy."

"You think there could be more male IS pilots?"

"Maybe, after all one did turn up. And where there is one there is bound to be more."

"Fair enough." She had half finished her steak and would need a refill on the water soon. "You know I've heard rumors that the academy has had plenty of inter student relationships before Orimura showed up."

"Can't say I'm surprised. With over a hundred teenagers in the academy it's bound to happen." After tacking a few more bites of her meal something occurred to her. "You're not coming on to me now are you?"

"Waaht, no. What made you think that." All the while she was waving here arms in front of her and unable to speak straight.

"Just making sure." Unfortunately the comment had made her do a once over of Cecilia looks, the girl was cute, and the way the hai-. Mind get your ass out of the gutter, I am not ending up in bed with a girl I just met.

I just hope this isn't a sign of things to come, if it is I won't be able to recognize myself by the time I'm finished here.

_Tech Con Group Weapon Demonstration Field, Hebridan_

Dr. Samantha Carter had an excellent view of the field the Hedridan's had set up to show of their new weapon. A small stone village had been erected near the center, complete with a few dozen Jaffa mannequins tacking positions around the village. She turned to Warrick beside her, who had insisted that a Tau'ri representative be present during this demonstration. Something about this being Hebridan's take from the joint research and engineering initiative. She was kinda exited about it, the people of Hebridan had come a long way since their chance encounter a few years ago. They were now beginning to look outwards, to take advantage of the chaos of the Goa'uld civil war to strengthen their position. What happened to Tollana three years ago probably pushed them further down that path.

"So what is this new weapon? I can think of a few weapon types that would be useful for clearing out a village, but none would warrant a representative being here."

"As I said it's a surprise, and I wouldn't want to ruin it by telling you. Needless to say it would never have been possible without Tau'ri help. Ah there beginning now." She turned her attention back to the field as some sort of craft flew over head, well it was Hebridan so a small craft wasn't exactly something that surprised her.

What surprised her was the crafts shape, it looked similar to modern jet fighters in overall appearance, a pair of wings jutted out from the sides about halfway down the craft. A single upright tail wing on the back, with a second set of horizontal wings below the horizontal wing. Which was a contrast to regular Hebridan design which favored more robust frames with no wings, but they occasionally had small fins on atmospheric vehicles. This new craft was a definite departure form Hebrididian design, and she couldn't see why they did it. Jolinar suggested she wait until after the demonstration before asking questions.

If the appearance of the craft was a surprise to her then what it did next defied explanation. First it circled around the village before slowing down and having four appendages drop form beneath the craft. Two of the appendages dropped from the rear and swung forwards to the near vertical, she could make out bumps along the lower piece that stood out from the rest what could only be describes as legs. Even as she watched small blue light could be seen coming out the bottom of the bumps at irregular intervals. _Maneuvering thrusters? _Looks like it. If the rear pair of appendages were legs than the front pair were arms, they had dropped down out of the bottom and each ended in a double barrel of some weapon.

The craft dropped down on top of one of the buildings utterly crushing it in the process. Before the dust had settled the arm mounted weapons had blown several large holes in another building. The craft also had a nose mounted weapon that was used to clear out a group of Jaffa in a relatively clear area. The speed at which it fired indicated that the Hebridan's had figured out how to make a fully automatic energy weapon, or at least the equivalent. The last building was a fair distance form the rest, it was destroyed by two objects that launched them selves from the top of the craft and followed a simple arcing path that intersected with the building. The twin blasts reduced the building to bits of masonry and wood.

A few more shots from the arm mounted weapons cleared out the rest of the buildings and 'Jaffa'. The craft then lifted of as the signal ending the demonstration went out. The craft landed landed nearby where she was and along with Warrick went over to where it touched down.

Approaching it the first thing she noted was that it was bigger than most small craft she had seen. From end to end it must have been around thirteen or fourteen meters, while it's wingspan must have been around fifteen. Getting close enough to pick out the details she noted that the leg joined up just to the rear of the center point with the arms being attached right in front of the legs. Near the front of the body she can see two openings for were the forward mounted weapons were.

"Just what are the wings used for Warrick?"

"That's were the gravity plates are located, and they are shaped to provide some lift, similar to how you built your F302. The craft's primary purpose is to secure landing zones for follow up troops, and heavy equipment, and after that is done act as raiders, striking at weak points in the enemy formation. The original concept came of your IS units, a unit that can get to any point of the battlefield, and once there use it's weapons to disrupt enemy formations. Like all are small craft it can be launched from our carriers then survive entering a planets atmosphere then at the end of the mission return to the orbital carrier."

"Sounds impressive. What's its name."

"It's designation is GAA101, a final name has yet to be chosen. Though I hear the name Mechanized Ground Attack Vehicle is the most popular among the engineers right now, though they shorten it to MGAV when they say it. Personally I think the name one of your engineers called it fits the best."

"I thought I was the first Tau'ri to see it?"

"It was one of the engineers who was on loan, and he only saw some of the rough sketches and some ideas for general shape. He was actually the one to suggest the drop down arms."

"Fair enough, so what did he call it?"

"Veritech. Though he also suggested we build it so it transforms into a humanoid form, which I think is just plain ridiculous for a war machine." Carter had to repress her laugh, even on the other side of the galaxy earth pop-culture was having an effect on naming war machines.


	10. Chapter 5-Expect the Unexpected

_Chapter Five, Expect the Unexpected_

_IS Academy, Japan, Earth, April 2015_

She stood in a white world, all was white except for the remains of buildings where she stood. Ruins of stone and concrete, metal rebar protruding from random blocks. An ever present aura permeated the world, it was not oppressive merely there, like the non-existent wind. Standing in front of her is the figure of the woman, tall with a head topped with short blond hair and piercing hazel eyes. A black uniform adorns her body, completely covering her yet at the same time emphasizing her subtle curves. She can feel the determination, the pride, the power radiating outwards from the woman, yet there is also sadness, and loss in her eyes. Yet underneath it all is an immovable strength, the strength to do what is necessary, the strength to carry on. The woman closed her eyes for a moment before opening them again, after a short pause she began to speak-

*BEEP*BEEP*BEEP*BEEP*

Cassandra Fraiser groggily opened her eyes, before raising her head of the comfortable pillow. What had that dream been about, as she tried to recall it the details faded from memory. Slamming her fist down on the clock turned of the alarm, for a moment. When it refused to stop it's annoying call to awareness, she rotated her head and shoulders to stare the offending object into oblivion. Looking at the clock her eyes snapped open, crap it was already seven forty-five, her home room starts at eight-thirty. Throwing the blankets aside she attempts to get out of bed only to have her left foot caught in the sheets. She impacted the floor face first with an audible thud.

Picking herself up carefully this time around she returned the sheets to the bed before going to get changed. Quickly swapping out of her pajamas for her school uniform, which was a white shirt with matching skirt, adorned with red stripes, indicating that she was a first year, and black trim that made the whites and reds stand out more. Stopping by the washroom on the way out she spent a few minutes making herself presentable to the rest of the world. She exited a few minutes later with straight hair, and unwrinkled uniform and a face that didn't look several years older than she actually was. Making a quick detour to pick up her bag, which she had almost forgotten, she exited her dorm room making sure to lock it behind her.

Heading down to the cafeteria she didn't pass to many students, still asleep? If they don't get up soon they'll miss their first class. The class lists had been posted in the cafeteria for the past three days, her home room was class one-b, she had meant to ask Cecilia what class she was in but never got around to it. And because the lists were all in kanji script looking through them would be difficult, she could speak Japanese reasonably well but her ability to read kanji required some work.

Entering the cafeteria it didn't take a genius to figure out that most of the school had slept in, on the first day of classes. This was going to end in tears. Picking up a plate of eggs, bacon and sliced fruits along with a glass of juice she made her way over to the back of the cafeteria to eat. She had just started eating when she spotted Cecilia's blonde hair in the crowd. She gave a quick wave over to the other girl, Cecilia returned the wave before going of to get her meal. A few minutes later Cecilia came over with her breakfast, buttered toast with some scrambled eggs, and sat down across from Cassandra.

Deciding to be the one to break the ice, and get the answer to a question that had been bothering her.. "You know I never did which class you were in? I'm in b-one."

"Oh, I'm in class one-b, you, so same class. Do you know the room number? I forgot to look that up."

"Room three nineteen, main building."

"I'll just follow you there. But I'm surprised, if you wanted to find out which class I was in you could have just looked it up?"

"I have trouble with kanji." As she said this she let her shoulders sag a bit, it was kind of embarrassing not to mention a problem considering it was probably what all her assignments and tests would be written in.

Cecilia glanced over at the clock on the wall before turning back to her. "We don't have time before class, but... If you want we can meet up somewhere afterwords and I can help you."

"Really!" She was practically jumping out of her chair.

"Yes, yes, just calm down already, you don't need to get all exited about it."

"Sorry, it just that over the past week I haven't been able to make out most of the stuff that's written down. It's driving me crazy."

"Weren't you supposed to learn kanji before you came here."

"I tried, just my teacher wasn't very good at teaching, though he did teach me Japanese pretty well."

"'He', no wonder you didn't learn it, you should have gotten a female teacher, they would have made sure you had what you needed." Cassandra let out a sigh, Cecilia's pro female stance was kinda annoying, if somewhat justified.

"We'll figure out a time and place later, right now we should get to class."

"Agreed." With that they finished off their meals before grabbing their bags and heading for the cafeteria exit.

Just as they were about to leave, Cecilia stopped, turned around and pushed her back away from the exit. Before she could say anything, like asking why Cecilia just did that a literal stampede of students rushed through the exit and into the cafeteria. Well that explained where everyone was.

It must have taken at least five minutes for the crowd to thin out enough for her and Cecilia to get out of the now crowded cafeteria. Did everyone seriously have to get up at the last minute, if they weren't careful they would miss class. As it was she and Cecilia had the hallway to themselves as they made their way to the main building's third floor.

Cecilia broke the silence that had developed. "You know I think I just might get up early everyday to avoid that crowd."

"What you mean you got up early accidentally?"

"Yes, why else would I get up when I didn't intend to. You intended to get up early?"

"Yeah, the past week I've been getting up later than usual, even today was still later than I normally do." Cecilia looked horrified. "What?"

"How can you get up so early!? It couldn't have been to far past seven-thirty!"

"I'm used to getting up around six thirty, seven thirty's easy."

"How can you do that, it's unnatural!"

"My family's in the military, I learned how to get up early a long time ago."

"So... that explains it." Cecilia gave a forced smile. They finished the journey to the classroom in silence.

Room three nineteen was fairly plain as classrooms went. The wall bordering the hallway was a low wall topped by windows running down it's length. Inside thirty wooden topped desks stood in five rows of six facing a podium and large desk set at the front of the room. Several desks were already occupied by students in no particular order. Entering the room her gaze settled on the board at the front where there was a diagram of the classroom drawn up. It took her all of two seconds to realize that it was a seating arrangement. You have to be kidding me, what do they think this is, preschool. It's high school and they have seating arrangements.

Letting out a sigh and giving into the unreasonable rules for the time being, she went to the board and located her desk. It ended up just behind one of the girls who was already there bordering the window wall, Cecilia ended up on the other side of the class by the windows.

The girl who was seated in front of her was reading a magazine of some kind, but do to the angle she was looking at it from she couldn't make out any details of it. Seeing as it didn't concern her she paid it no mind and continued on to her desk where she set her bag down beside the desk before sitting down.

She had just leaned back in her seat when the girl in front of her suddenly said, "this doesn't make any sense," before dropping her head down on to her desk. Hard, I heard her head crack! That had to have hurt. She did her best to not notice her classmates painful moaning, really what was worth hitting your head on the desk?

After a minute or so of painful moaning her classmate finally raised her head of the desk, she had been getting ready to go grab someone, evidently no additional help was needed. She didn't expect the girl to turn around. "Sorry about that, I just can't make out what this says, and normally I can, and I'm rambling aren't I." She put on her best amused face, well that was an entertaining start to my morning. The girl was also holding up the magazine she had been reading, it was the latest issue of 'GateWay Monthly', in english. Basically a magazine that published scientific papers and articles from the gateway initiative. What did Carter or someone else put in there, it was supposed to be dumbed down, but some people's idea of dumbed down did equate to understandable to the average person, Carter.

No wonder the poor girl needed help understanding what was written down. "Let me see that." She held her hand out for the magazine which the girl turned over. She placed it down on her desk while the girl turned to face her. "So what part don't you get?"

"One of the article that starts on page seventeen." She flipped to the relevant page in the magazine.

"Alright, which one?"

The girl pointed to one the articles. "That one."

It took her all of two seconds to figure out why the girl was having so much trouble. "Well there's your problem, you're trying to understand McKay's ramblings."

"You know McKay!" The girl looked ready to go into freakout mode.

"By reputation only." And being one of Carter's coworkers, but that stuff was top-secret. "He writes papers that contain a lot of scientific wording, so it's no surprise you got lost somewhere."

"Hmmm... You know I didn't expect to run into someone else who reads this stuff, everyone back home thinks it's garbage. But I find it interesting, well what I can understand at any rate. So what parts interest you the most?"

"Mostly I read the stuff by Carter and Lam," mostly because she finds it funny how they pass of offworld tech to the general public. "Though I do just go through most of the articles that I find to be interesting."

"I just end up reading the whole magazine start to finish." Okay, you may be the only one who does that.

"I see. You know I didn't get your name." She really needed to remember to ask for names before getting into a long conversation with someone she didn't know.

"It's Nizru Takanachi, yours?"

"Cassandra Fraiser. You from around here?"

"Yeah, I'm from Fukushima. By your name your from, europe right."

"Ah no. I'm the representative candidate from the U.S."

"Whaaa... PPPPlllleease take care of me!" Thunk, the Nizru tried to bow in her seat and only end up hitting her head on Cassandra's desk.

"Ahhhhh..." Err, what? What just happened, this was not how she intended to start the morning, semester or year.

A presence beside her made her turn her head to face it. Cecilia was standing there looking very upset. What now? "Would you mind explaining?" Cecilia's smile was definitely forced, and gave her the shivers when she looked at it.

"Explaining what?" Would someone explain why the hell everyone went weird suddenly.

"What to you mean 'Explaining what'!, why didn't you tell me you were a representative candidate?" Oh that, that made sense.

"You never asked, and I didn't think it was relevant." Nizru hadn't moved, should someone be informed of this, the girl may have suffered permanent injury.

"Hadn't thought it relevant, do you know what being a representative candidate means?"

"It means you're representing your country at the IS academy."

"So you understand some of it, let me fill you in on the rest. A representative candidate holds one of only four hundred and sixty-seven cores, making them the elite of the elite in the world. I, Cecilia Alcot am the representative candidate from England. We are the elite in this class Cassandra. Honestly, what do they teach you in America."

"You know you're making it a bigger deal than it actually is, the only reason I got selected was because of certain circumstances that put me in the right situation." She decided not to go into circumstances as that was classified information that shouldn't be shouted from the rooftops. Though most people would probably dismiss it anyways. "Besides being a rep candidate doesn't make you a better person or pilot."

"How can you say that?"

"Was it any different from why you were selected?"

"Yes!" She aimed the patented Fraiser glare at Cecilia, Cecilia returned her own glare. "Mostly." She continued on with the glare, "Sort of." Cecilia's own glare was wavering. "Kind of." The glare wavered before falling completely. "No." Cecila's normally stern voice had lost it's edge and confidence that had defined it.

"I thought so." Just then the bell rang prompting Cecilia to return to her seat. In less than a minute every desk in the room occupied, just in time as the prof entered the room. The prof herself was wearing a black and brown version of the school uniform.

A curt cough silenced the remaining chatter. She had just opened her mouth to speak when the loudest 'squee' Cassandra had ever heard came from the wall behind the prof. The prof`s eyes went as wide as they possibly could, Cassandra was pretty sure everyone mirrored the prof`s expression.

The sound of a door being thrown open was quickly followed by a the sound of a stampede of students before silence returned. The silence lasted for about a minute before it was broken by a quiet groan. The prof had buried her forehead in both of her hands and was intently staring at the desk. Well that was an interesting start to the day.

Nizru still hadn't moved.

_Later_

_Main building rooftop_

Cassandra was going over the course schedule while drinking from a water bottle she had picked up at the cafeteria. She had gotten the schedule during first period after things had straightened themselves out somewhat. Her classes were organized into a two-week block that repeated itself throughout the year, relatively normal. What wasn't normal for most schools were the six scheduled tournaments throughout the year. The first in line was the class representative tournament at the beginning of may.

The classes were fairly normal fare, with various language courses, science, and math. What stood out were the 'IS training sessions' that happened once or twice a week. Only one school in the world had that as a class, the school she was currently attending. Letting a bunch of teenagers run wild in the most powerful, highly expensive military hardware publicly on the planet.

She took a sip from the bottle before leaning back against the wall behind her. She had picked one of the few places on the roof where there was shade, right next to the stairwell leading back down into the building. She was pretty sure she had most of her schedule figured out, she would just run it by Cecilia later to get a second opinion. Speaking of which she should probably try to talk with Cecilia some time about this morning, that had not gone well.

Her thoughts were interrupted when the door to the stairwell was thrown open quickly followed by the only male student at the academy Ichika Orimura coming around the corner. For a moment they just stayed there staring at each other unable to do anything. Ichika looked ready to bolt at a moments notice while Cassandra was pretty sure she looked dumbstruck.

Hearing pounding coming from below, she quickly deduced what was happening. Standing up she went over to the door to the stairwell, looks like she was saving him form a mob, again. Opening the door she began to making her way down the stairs. She had only gone down a few steps when the lead girl of the mob came around the bend in the stairwell. The girl took one look at Cassandra before her face adopted a disappointed look.

The girl shouted down the stairs, "Dammit, we went the wrong way!"

"I'm sure he came this way!"

"Well he evidently didn't!"

"How do figure that?"

"Someone's coming down."

"Ohh..."

Cassandra felt she should probably say something, "Uhh who are you looking for?"

"No one, just... go back to whatever you were doing."

"O...kay." With that the other girl ran back down the stairs.

Cassandra turned around and returned to the bench, where she had been previously. All without moving her eyes and head. She couldn't believe how easy that had been, maybe playing stupid had its advantages.

"Uhh thanks, again." Ichika speaking to her snapped her out of the daze she had fallen into.

"Uh Oh. I'm surprised you didn't take your chance and run. Besides why are you thanking me again?"

"For that time in the cafeteria, you really helped me get out of a difficult place. And a man always pays his depts, so that's two favors I owe you." Wow, he sounded sorta like Teal'c, a meeting between these two would be interesting to watch.

"Don't worry about it, you get chased around like that a lot."

"Everyday since I got here, and before that every news agency was willing to do anything to get an interview with me. Eventually they went to far and my sister enrolled me here. Though I'm still deciding if it was a good idea."

"Sister?" Does he mean Chifuyu Orimura the ex Mondo Gras champion. They share the same family name but are they really related?

"Yeah turns out she teaches here." Cassandra was pretty sure she would have spit out water if she had been drinking any.

"What!? Why is your sister teaching here? Well it does explain why you were enrolled here."

"Yeah, apparently it was to keep me safe, I don't feel safe here. Almost every waking moment is spent trying not to get killed by a mob of girls. Really you'd expect that they would have tired of it already. Sis didn't give me much of choice though. Rule number one at our house, you don't mess with Chifuyu Orimura, White Night pilot, Mondo Gras champion and the wife of Shinono Tabanae." It was obvious Ichika wasn't exactly happy right no- wait what did he say.

"Tabbanae's wife?!"

"Yeah, though they don't want people finding out about it. Can't figure out why though." She could figure out why, there were certain groups that would react rather badly to that bit of information. How she was interested, it was no small secret that the SGC wanted to hire Tabanae, and any way to get in contact with her was valuable. And here was one just dropped right into their laps.

"You know I really shouldn't be surprised at all, after all except for you only women can pilot an IS, so it sort of makes sense for their creator to have an interest in women." She gave Ichika a look from top to bottom. "You are a guy right? Not just some cross dressing girl looking for attention."

Ichika just gave her a glare, which sent her into a fit of giggles. "Do you want me to prove it to you." He then reached for the top of his pants.

"Nah, it's okay. Only a guy would actually prove his manhood like that." Awkward moment avoided. "When I first heard your name I wondered if you were really related to Chifuyu Orimura, well I guess I know now."

"Yah, though until today I didn't know she taught here. Found out when she hit me with the attendance book, let me tell you that thing hurts when it hits. Well it explains where she had been going off to, seeing as she left me alone at home for pretty much my entire time in middle school."

"Alone, what about your parents?"

"I never knew my parents, for as long as I can remember I've been living with my sister. Though I suppose you have always had your parents around."

"Actually my parents died when I was six."

"Ohhh... I didn't know."

"You had no way of knowing anyways." The pair dropped into silence, neither of them sure what to say.

They remained that way for a few minutes before Ichika spoke up. "You ever wonder whats out there. The IS was originally created for space travel, so wouldn't it be great if we can actually go out among the stars and see what's there."

"No I don't." She knew exactly what was out there, and what was out there was looking to kill or enslave everyone on this planet. "No I don't wonder what's out," softly she added, "I know what's out there."

"Ehh, that's to bad. It's just that ever since the IS was introduced I've been dreaming of going to the stars. Of course I always thought I would just be part of the support crew, I never thought I would actually end up piloting an IS." That might be closer than Ichika believed. "Do you have a dream?"

"Not really." Not one she could actually share with him anyways. She wished to return to the stars, and bring down the Goa'uld. Softly she added, "once you have seen the truth it is impossible to return to ignorance."

_Later_

_Teachers Office_

Chifuyu Orimura looked over the idiot seated across from her. In one day he had managed to completely destroy any semblance of of sanity in this school. "In less than one day you managed to turn this entire school upside down. And that's not even counting what you did during the later half of lunch break, and really I don't even want to know. Given how the rest of the day turned out."

"It's not my fault that almost every girl in the school is actively trying to kill me. And I just glad there is at least one girl, who I had talked with during the later half of lunch, who isn't trying to bury me in a dogpile. I swear Houki and Rin are going to rip me in half by the end of the week."

"How you manage to infuriate so many women is beyond me-"

"I infuriate them! How many of them were asking to be disciplined by you this morning, you seem to do your own bit of infuriating yourself. Maybe it's because you're ma-"

"That was the result of one too many drinks-"

"You could have always broken up later though, and you didn't." Dammit stop using logical arguments.

"Irrelevant. Now you said you were talking to a girl during lunch break, which would imply she wasn't chasing you down. Did you get her name?" At least someone used their head rather than other body parts meant for other tasks than thinking.

"Uhh, oops." Why was she not surprised. "She was a first year who wasn't in our class."

"Well you narrowed it down from three hundred and sixty students to ninety, that makes it so much easier."

"Really." She let out a sigh.

"Learn to recognize sarcasm, it will come in really use full during your life."

"Yah, Yah. She also had blonde hair and was here before the year started."

"Still not enough to go on. When you meet people you should make a habit of getting their names."

"Right." Ichika just rolled his eyes.

"I'm trying to help you." He just rolled his eyes again. "Remember who determines your grade at the end of the year."

"So in other words the amount of effort I put in is irrelevant to my final mark."

"Not what I meant." Glancing at the clock. "You should run along now, I have work to do and you have some thinking to do."

"Yeah yeah. Oh, if I don't show up for class tomorrow it's because I've been dismembered and my body scattered around the school."

"You're over thinking things."

"Well you said I had some thinking to do."

"Not what I meant, now I have other work that needs to be attended to."

"I'll try to survive." With that he got up and left. He wouldn't end up dead would he?

_Later_

_Dorms_

Cassandra Fraiser looked over the notes she had compiled about the days events, she would pass on most of what went into the notes to carter when they met up again. There was at least one tidbit that the SGC would be interested to know.

She would however make sure that it was accurate, and not just born of Ichika's illusions about his sister. At first glance it didn't seem like it held any truth, but then this involved Tabanae so all bets were of.

Getting confirmation would mean getting close to Ichika, which alone had its problems she had been lucky today, but while she didn't hate the guy he wasn't her type. Being a spy was harder than the movies made it out to be, and if mom ever found out about it she was going to regret it. Movie spies had it easy, they didn't have to deal with moms.

Closing the laptop she focused on her other problem, backing out of the duel for class representative with Cecilia. While she was fairly confident that she could win the duel, she didn't want to win as that would mean becoming the class representative and having more work to do. Really, what made Cecilia think that a duel was the best way to decide class representative, considering she didn't even want the position. And what was with the condition that the loser runs around the school naked, where the hell did Cecilia come up with that!, and what was with the rest of the class thinking it was a good idea.

And the only reason she was even in the running for class representative was that Nizru had 'volunteered' her for the position. And before she could turn down the position, Cecilia had volunteered herself for the position and declared the best way to decide would be via a duel, which the rest of the class had been rather enthusiastic about. Then the prof sealed the deal and it was done, and had left her looking for a way out of it.

So now she had to get out of the duel by the end of the week or she would have to be the class representative or run around the school naked. She wasn't sure what was worse. Stifling a yawn she decided to deal with it in the morning.

At the moment only one bed was occupied as her roommate still hadn't shown up despite the first day of classes finishing. At this point she had given up on getting a roommate, besides Ichika had a room to himself and if there was an even number of students that meant one other person was going to get a room to themselves. Looks like that's me.

Just as she was about to get into bed, someone knocked on her door, well looks like I'm getting a roommate after all. Walking over to the door she opened it up to reveal a long brown-haired girl standing in the doorway, first year judging by the uniform. She was holding the collar of another girl with short silver hair clutching onto a bag and snoring loudly, also a first year. She stared at the pair for a second before closing the door.

A knock came again, she opened the pair hoping the scene in the hallway had changed. The pair was still there snores included. Letting out a sigh, "what do you want."

Clearing her throat the brunette spoke, "My name is Ludmilia Chekov and this," pointing to the silver-haired girl, "is your roommate."

"And does my 'roommate' have a name? And why are you dragging her around."

"Well I'm the class four representative and this girl was sleeping in class and we couldn't wake her up. So being the class representative I was tasked with bringing her to her room. First I had to collect her and her bag from the classroom then we had to go down to-"

"Cut to the chase." Really couldn't people just sum things up.

"She bunking in this room, with you apparently."

"And her name?" Kind of important.

"I don't know."

"Isn't that required to find her room." Really, I don't even think Ichika remembered to get my name today, is there something in this school that prevents people from asking others names.

"Now that you mention it, the desk lady managed to figure out her name, but I can't remember what it was."

"Do you remember what she did to find it out at least."

"I think she pulled out a necklace of some sort and read it..." They both looked down at the girl, Cassandra unburden by holding anything made it down first. Going to the back of the neck she found two necklaces, rather than trying a guessing game she pulled both out. The first one was the school issued ID, convenient, the second looked to be a locket.

Not wanting to get into her privacy she looked over the ID, "Sasha McQuabe."

"What's that?"

"Her name, now can you help me get her in."

"Sure." Ludmiila grabbed Sasha's left arm while she grabbed the right, which brought up something else, instead of the normal skirt Sasha was wearing the pant version of the uniform. Is Sasha really a guy? After thinking about it for a second she came to the conclusion that if Sasha was really a guy, they would be rooming with Ichika not her.

In took the pair of them about a minute to put Sasha into the unoccupied bed and tuck her in. After that Ludmilia left, presumably to go back to her room, Cassandra grabbed her laptop and put it into her safe that had come with the room, her phone and wallet joined it. Before she shut of the lights Sasha's locket caught her eye from where she had put it down on the desk.

Curiosity getting the better of her she went and picked it up. Looking over her shoulder to make sure Sasha wasn't awake she opened it. Inside was a picture of Sasha and a masculine red head, after looking over it for a minute and not finding anything else Cassandra returned the locket to Sasha's neck. She wanted to ask Sasha about the locket but she was tired and Sasha was fast asleep meaning any questions would have to wait until morning. Stifling another yawn Cassandra went to bed.


	11. Chapter 6-A day in the Life

_Chapter Six, A day in the Life_

_Cheyenne Mountain Complex, Gate Control Room, April 2015_

"Chevron seven locked." Walters echoed around the control room as the stargate on the other side of the armored glass window lit up. The unstable blue vortex rushing outward, stopping just inside the warning tape placed on the ground, before falling back into the gate. A few ripples spread across the surface as the event horizon stabilized. "Sending MALP through." The six wheeled remote operated vehicle rolled up the metal ramp and through the event horizon.

The one way wormhole shot the vehicle across the galaxy to a planet the SGC computers had dubbed PC5-336. "Receiving MALP telemetry." Several screens above the window lit up displaying a multitude of data ranging from atmospheric information to video from the MALP's camera's. The camera's showed that the stargate was located in a clearing with trees rising up on all sides. "Atmospheric pressure, composition and within habitable zone, checking for airborne particulates."

A minute passed as instruments on the MALP sampled the air for dust particles. "MALP reports levels safe for no filters."

"How much can we see?"

"Not much the trees are blocking line of sight to anything away from the gate."

"Do we have room to deploy a UAV?"

"Just a second, yes we do."

"Have one prepped for launch."

"Yes sir. ETA one hour."

'Good, contact me once its ready."

_Later_

The stargate opened back up into it's signature pool of standing water as the UAV was lowered form the floors above. The UAV was little more than tube rounded at one end attached to two set of wings and a stabilization fin. The descent stopped just in front of the gate with the front of the UAV pointed towards the gate with the motor pointing just bellow the window.

"All systems are green, area clear, ready for launch."

"Do it." A plume of smoke launched out of the rear of the UAV as the rocket attached to the rear activated launching the UAV of the crane and into the stargate.

Almost instantly the UAV reappeared on PC5-336 where, with a quick control input, it angled back and took into the alien skies. After leveling of at altitude, the control room used the UAV's exterior camera's to look around the area near the gate. The immediate area was heavily forested with a mountain range rising up to the 'right' of the gate.

"Anything that doesn't fit in."

"Not yet sir."

"In that case, bring us closer to those mountains."

"Yes si- hold it. Radiologicals got something. Triangulating now." The view in the cameras shifted as the craft banked to the left, breaks in the green canopy appeared indicating the presence of other clearings. "Got a lock on magnetic north, gate is facing approximately sixty-three degrees east. Located source, one and half kliks north east of gate."

"Can you get the UAV closer? Also see if you can identify what is producing the reading."

"On it." The view shifted again as the UAV banked back to the right. After less than a minute of travel several spires rising out of the treetops came into view. While covered in green and brown growths the spires had a blue-grey color to them. Though the overgrowth obscured most of the details it was obvious that the spires were artificial in origin. A central spire surrounded by three shorter towers each spaced at even intervals around the central tower, each was also the same distance from the central tower.

"Radiological signature appears to be that of decayed Naquadah." Definitely artificial in origin.

"Can you get a look inside."

"No, the structure is absorbing the ground penetrating radar."

"Then we'll have to send a team in, how much daylight have they got left."

"From the position of the primary and its relative direction, not much."

"When will it be back up?"

"Calculating, about thirteen hours sir."

"Have SG-1 and SG-2 ready to go at oh four hundred."

"Yes sir." That would put them there just behind dawn on the planet.

_Early next Morning_

_Gateroom_

"So what possessed Hammond to send Kawalski and his boys along with us?" Asked Jack to no one in particular.

"Well we are investigating ruins that may have been built by the Ancients, and they just love to build stuff without writing an operation manual. Kawalski's team has had the most luck in figuring out ancient systems from nothing." Responded Daniel to the rhetorical question.

"Or they could just give us Carter back, no offense Hailey."

"None taken." Hailey rolled her eyes, the woman had grown tired of being compared to Carter.

"Carter's busy at area fifty-one. Besides Hailey's good enough, and Carter can do more at area fifty-one then in the field." At that point SG-2 entered the gate room via one of the massive metal doors built into the side of the room.

"So what you chatting about, I believe I heard my name mentioned." Spoke up the newly arrived Kawalski.

"Oh, the usual, new planet new adventures."

"O'Neill was questioning why we gained a second team for this mission as well as the lack of Samantha Carter on his team." Corrected Teal'c.

"What I said." Kawalski just rolled his eyes.

"Well I think it's about time to hit the road. Hit it Walter." With a loud grind the inner ring of the gate started to spin. Each time it stooped another chevron was locked in with a churn-chunk before the inner circle began spinning the other way. After inputting seven chevrons the gate activated with a ca-woosh as the unstable vortex shot out stopping right before the group before retreating back into the gate.

"Well that's our cue, time to hit the road boys and girls." With that O'Neill strode forward through the gate and out into the galaxy.

_PC5-336, Stargate_

O'Neill stepped out of the stargate and was confronted by a mix of evergreens and Oak look alikes, well it's not like we see that on every other planet, sometimes it's a desert. Striding forward he did a quick check over his shoulder to make sure everyone else had arrived, they were all spreading out from the gate weapons at the ready. The gate shut down shortly afterwords, and a minute after that the group lowered their weapons, but kept them in their hands.

"Alright we have about fourteen hours worth of daylight, the plan is to get to the structure that was found yesterday do what we need to do there and get back before sunset. If we can't make it back we're going to stay in the structure for the night, as it probably the safest place around. Ideally we make it back before sunset. Everyone understand," nods all around, "good, Hailey get the UAV in the air and point us in the right direction."

"Yes sir." Hailey went over to the landed UAV and while retrieving a tablet form her backpack. With a light hum she started the anti-gravity engines mounted on the UAV sending it back into the air. It circled around a few times while climbing, before angling of in the direction they needed to go. "This way," Hailey lead in a direction just off being straight away from the gate.

They followed Hailey for about an hour and a half all the while zigzagging through the trees, underbrush and other terrain features in their way. By the time they arrived at the closet of the towers the group was weary from walking and took a short break at the towers base. The base of the tower itself was about fifty meters in diameter and stretched at least two to three hundred meters in the air.

"Well the ancients sure knew how to build to last. Given how much flora is around the tower they must have been sitting here for several millenia without maintenance." Remarked Corporal Janice Tessa SG-2's botany and animal specialist.

"Well these you are the same people who built the stargate network and it's still working after several thousand years. At least considering we have no idea how long ago it was actually built." Responded Dr. Jackson.

"Any idea what we'll find in there Jackson." Asked Sergeant Agustaf Mendez of SG-2.

"No idea until we get in there, be on the lookout for anything and have the cameras rolling. We don't want to miss anything and have to come back to look for it."

"You can say that again, I for one don't feel like doing that hike again this afternoon."

After a short break with everyone but Teal's eating a snack, the group found the entrance to the tower and the group minus Hailey and Janice, proceeded to head inside. Inside they found a small entrance hall with two staircases heading off of it, the walls were a light blue-grey covered in ancient script.

"Daniel anything?" Inquired Jack.

"No." Responded the Archeologist.

"I thought you could make sense of ancient."

"I can, it's just that. It's just that it seems like someone just put letters on the wall at random. I can't find any patterns in it, nor do I see any ancient words that I recognize."

"Alright, record everything then we'll move on to the other towers. We can figure this out back at the SGC."

"Hey Jack, up or down first." Asked Kawalski.

"Up, we know it only goes so far, down may just keep going." Going up the stairs they found more writing in ancient script. They continued upwards for at least a hundred meters before they emerged into a large chamber at least thirty meters high, with ledges every ten meters or so, causing the room to wider at the top then the bottom, stairways along the walls allowed access to higher levels. Also script covered the room floor to ceiling, even the stairs had script on them. In the center stood a pedestal with a slanted top, in the center of the top was a large black are set into the surrounding material.

"Anything Daniel?" Asked Jack.

"No, I still can't find anything I recognize."

"Alright record everything then we'll head back down." It took the team the better part of an hour to record the room's contents, Jack even touched the pedestal a few times to see if he could get a reaction out of it, it turned out to be futile.

"Well that's everything, if the other towers are like this we could be here awhile."

"Breaking into teams won't make it go any faster and it increases the risk of security. We'll head back out and leave a message for Hailey to relay to Hammond, she can also relay what we have so far while we're at it."

Outside Hailey had landed the UAV outside of the tower and was in the process of examining the contents of the UAV's computer. "Find anything in there?" Hailey asked as the group emerged while lifting her head up from what she was doing. Janice was of to the side making some notes about the plants she was looking at.

"A bunch of writing, but Jackson can't make heads or tails of it. How long until our next check in?"

Hailey brought her arm up and pulled back her sleeve to look at her watch. "About half an hour."

"When he calls tell him that we are investigating the towers and have found a significant amount of ancient literature that we can't make sense of. Also send back what we've recorded already. Any clue on the radiation source that was found?"

Pointing near the top of the central tower, "near the top of that tower, can't tell what it is from here. Signatures similar to that of decayed naquadah, but that doesn't tell us much."

"We'll go there last," turning to the rest of the group, "give Hailey what you've got so far and then we'll head to that tower over there," he pointed towards the tower to the right of the central spire. This way would get them to the tower on the far side of the central spire from the gate last. The group ejected memory sticks from their cameras before inserting new ones and handing the old ones of to Hailey. After they had finished that the group followed O'Neill to the second tower.

The walk over took roughly ten minutes and inside they had found a situation similar to what they had found in the first tower.

_Later_

"Are you sure you can't make sense of any of this." Jack asked Daniel for the nth time.

"I've told you Jack, it may be written in ancient, but this is not any form of ancient I have ever seen." They had were going back over a long ago overdone debate as they exited the tower and made their way back to the base of the first tower. As they approached the first tower they noticed that the UAV was in the air circling around in between the first and central towers.

As they approached Hailey called out to them. "Any luck?"

"Nope. They the exact same on the inside, including the part where we can't understand what's written down."

"So you guys gonna head over to the last tower, my hunch says that you'll run into the same thing there as well."

"I was thinking about that, I want to head to the central tower first. There might be something there we can use to translate what we've found so far. And I a similar hunch, that we're going to find more or less in the last tower as what we found in the first two."

"Might I remind everyone that there is a radiation source up in that central tower."

"Actually I was looking into that. The radiation levels are far to low to cause any permanent damage if you don't stay there too long."

"And how long is too long."

"About an hour."

"And chances are we're going to be longer than that."

"Jack what we need might be in there. We need to at least go in there and have a look."

"And we will, after we've looked at everything else. And besides it's only going to be a short visit anyways. We won't have time to for anything else."

"You realize the most important part is probably in there, after all it is the center of whatever this place is."

"I realize that, I also realize going near something radioactive is bad for your health."

"Fine we'll check out the last tower first before going to the center, but I bet you that we won't find anything useful until we check out the center tower. We'll just find the same thing as we did at the other two towers."

"We never find anything useful anyways." Jack muttered under his breath.

_Last tower_

"Well, this is different." They had just entered the entrance to the last tower, and while the layout was the same the walls were completely blank.

"Well it's different from the others. Kawalski, take your team over to the central tower and see what you can find, we'll take a look upstairs to see what we can find."

"On it. Alright boys follow me." Kawalski headed out of the tower with his two men and made for the central tower while Jack, Teal'c and Daniel ascended the current tower. The walls of the stairs were smooth unlike the other two towers where they had been covered in script.

Inside the main chamber all but the lower part of the far wall was blank, Jackson immediately headed to the other side of the central pedestal, and began looking over the writing. "Anything Daniel." Jackson merely held his hand back with one finger-pointing up.

After a minute Jackson turned around. "Well I've learned several new ways to call someone a coward in ancient. No mention of what is written in the other two towers. But here is the jist of what is written here, after the plague hit the ancients a group of them split off and ran away. Most of the wall is dedicated to how big of cowards they were. But I did manage to learn that they ran away on a ship called Lantis carrying several thousand of them. It doesn't mention where they go, or why they were running away. But I can actually make sense of what was written here."

"Lantis, Atlantis."

"Maybe, I had that thought as well. Something to look into when we get back."

"Is it possible that they ran away to earth? And do we need to worry about what they were running from?"

"Maybe, but this happened around thirty million years ago, whatever they were running from is probably long gone. And they may have run to earth, but it was thirty million years ago and the first human ancestors are much more recent than that."

"Record what's here then we'll go check up on Kawalski and see what they found." It took them all of five minutes to record the what was written before they were heading back down the stairs and outside to the central tower.

Approaching the central tower they saw one of Kawalski's men standing outside of the entrance. "What's up." Asked O'Neill.

"There's something the Colonel thinks Dr. Jackson should see."

Jack looked over his shoulder at Jackson before turning back to the soldier. "Lead the way," indicating the doorway. The soldier lead them through the doorway and up a spiral staircase that they followed for at least three minutes. At the top of the stairway they found a well sized room with six walls, with writing on three of them and openings to stairwells in the other three. Only one of the walls had writing in Ancient script. In the center of the room was a raised six-sided platform about a meter high. Kawalski and another soldier were standing on the other side of the platform.

"Well this is different." Remarked Jack. "Daniel does the writing, I don't know, look similar to you. Like we've seen it before."

"Heliopolis, the alliance of four races. And if I remember correctly we're looking at writing in Nox and Furling, but no Asgard." Jackson walked over to the wall with the ancient writing on it. "Well looks like this is just summation of what this room represents and on the other walls is the version in Nox and Furling. According to this, this room was the meeting place for the three great races of the galaxy. I think this room predates the Asgard joining the alliance."

"Anything about the towers outside?"

"No, but I don't think those towers were there when this was written. This was 'the lone spire to which all gathered', the towers outside were probably built later on. And this here," moving to the platform "is a display for a computer."

"But there's no screen." Jack pointed out the obvious.

"It doesn't use a screen," hovering his hand over top of it for a second caused shapes to appear on top of the platform. "It's a projector."

"And you knew this how?"

"It was written on the wall," after waving his hand around a bit over top of the platform a bit, "but this doesn't seem to working properly." The shapes kept changing but never resembled anything other than 'modern art'.

"So our radiation source is what's powering this thing."

"Looks like it, just let me record whats here then we can go." As Jackson went over to the walls with his camera, Jack moved over to the platform and waved his hand over top of it. The shapes and colors above the platform changed again, and Jack saw what he thought was a humanoid shape and some writing but it didn't last long.

One of Kawalski's men was going around the platform looking for something. "What are you looking for?" O'Neill asked.

"Access panel, but doesn't look like there is one."

"Ahh, well keep at it." He went over to Jackson, "well, how's it coming."

"Slowly, I've got it all recorded. It's just that I'm trying to figure out why the outer towers were built, I can't think of any reason as to why. And why build them here, why not build a new structure somewhere else."

"Maybe they had an attachment to this place."

"Maybe, but I can't figure out what it is."

Looking at his watch, "well its about time to start heading back now anyways, and I for one do not wish to sleep on an unknown planet with unknown wildlife unless I have to." Gathering everyone back up at the base of the first tower, the group set off back to the stargate.

She watched them begin the journey back to the Astria Porta, their path would return them home for she had urged the wild beasts to leave their path clear. She flowed herself back up to the conference room, rendering herself intangible as she passed through the walls and hidden corridors. There she turned of the projector, it's memory scrambled beyond retrieval, if only. If only it was possible to learn what had transpired to her ancestors, but the others had barred the Lanteans from that knowledge. They barely acknowledged the existence of the Lanteans within their ranks, only their status as ascended beings earning them grudged acknowledgment.

She had long ago started her quest for the truth of what had happened all those eons ago, but every step of the way had been barred by the others. Here as well all Lanteans had been barred from the libraries of the others, only permitted to know the shame of their ancestors, they could not even venture outside of the network of Astria Portas. They had even gone so far as to forbid the Lanteans from helping their children against the Goa'uld, tens of billions living in slavery under begins who could not survive without the aid of their servants. And even more of their children being whisked away into the darkness from which they never returnend.

But they would not leave their children to fight alone, she along with a small group of Lanteans had done everything they could to give their children a chance to fight. Artifacts were placed where they could be recovered, the sarcophagi had been sabotaged causing the Goa'uld madness with each use, leaders and machines influenced. They may not be able to fight the Goa'uld but they would help their children fight. She had personally created the circumstances that had let them meet the Asgard, and unlike her and the other Lanteans the Asgard were not restricted by the others.

And unlike the others both the Lanteans and the Asgard remembered something the others had forgotten. Something the Nox and Furlings were unaware of, they believed themselves to be untouchable by all but their peers. They were wrong, she gave a long prayer for all who. For the she could feel it in the deepest part of her being that the war being fought by the Goa'uld now would pale in comparison by what was coming next.

_Later_

_Earth, SGC, Conference Room_

"...and that concludes our initial findings on the ruins of PC5-336." Jackson closed the had just finished giving an abridged version of their findings from the most recent trip through the stargate. The gathered people all turned back to the table as Jackson took his seat.

"Well it appears we have found yet more questions concerning the Ancients, although we did learn that they were not completely united as we believed. I assume you will continue investigating the connection between Lantis and Atlantis, some political parties may not take kindly to your findings." The Generals last comment got a chuckle from some of the gathered personal as their opinion on certain political parties was fairly low.

"I intend to continue looking into this, though at this time I don't know how much I will find."

"That's alright doctor, however I will be sending copies of the writings over to the linguist department at Area fifty-one. If there is nothing else," the General looked around, "dismissed." The gathered personnel gathered up their notes and left the room.

_Japan, IS Academy, Student Council Room_

The twelve Class representatives were currently seated around three of the four tables that made up the student council room. The last table was for the president and her attendees, who were at the moment running late. The four tables were arranged in a square with everyone's back's to the wall, while the first year's were on the presidents right and going around in ascending class number ending in the last class of third year on the presidents left.

At the moment Ludmilia Chekov class four representative for the first year had grown bored of waiting for the president and her cronies to show up, and was in the process of deciding which weapon in the Buster's arsenal would make the most noise when she fired it into the air.

She had just selected the three kilogram railgun as her weapon when one of the third years spoke. "Seeing as Tatenashi and her bed-warmers are late, as usual, I propose we start without them. All in favor." Hands flew up around the room, personally Ludmilia was disappointed she wasn't going to fire a three kilogram slug into the ceiling, she then reassured herself that she could always do that later if she got bored. "Alright then, I think we should first address the biggest issue here, at the moment there are no less than seven personal machine users in the first year. Which also happens to be more than the second and third years have, combined. This has created a disparity for the upcoming class representative tournament as three out of the four year one representatives are personal machine holders. While the third years have three and the second years have two."

"Are you feeling outclassed." Toying with this third year was going to be so much fun, hopefully it ended in a duel, and explosions can never forget the explosions.

The third year shot a death glare at her, which she simply laughed at. "You know you're supposed to be taking this seriously."

"I am taking it seriously, in fact I'm taking it just as seriously as our president."

"Would you kindly leave our president out of this discussion, now back to the topic at ha-"

"How about you explain why it's relevant first, because from what I've heard the fights are between classes from the same year."

"You are correct, to an extent. The first part of the tournament is between the class representatives from each year, the second part however takes the three winners from the first part and puts them in a round robin. The round robin then determines the winner of the tournament."

"So only one person from each year makes it to the finals. Seeing as that's the case it shouldn't matter how many personal machines each year has as long as at least one is in the tournament. Seeing as their going to win their year anyway." The other girl opened her mouth right before closing it again and simply staring straight ahead. Before anyone else could say anything, the door opened and three second years walked in.

The three of them took their seats at the empty table before one of them stood back up. "Well I must thank you for not starting without me. For those of you who are new to the school, I am student council president Tatenashi Sarashiki. Now why don't we start by introducing ourselves, more for the benefit of the first years than anyone else. Why don't we start with my aides, Utsuho Nohotoke and Kaoruko Mayuzumi."

"Prez you just introduced us."

"Oh, I already did that, eh it's not like you're important anyways." The two girls by the president adopted dejected looks on their faces. "Moving on, we'll go counter-clockwise starting with the class one-a representative Ichika Orimura."

"Prez, you did it again."

"I did? Oh well, Ichika Introduce yourself."

"I find it mildly disturbing that people I don't even know, know my name."

"Unimportant, now introduce yourself."

"Fine, well as our 'glorious' president has already said I'm the class one-a representative Ichika Orimura."

"Cecilia Alcott, class one-b representative and British representative candidate."

"Jane Doe, class one-c representative and Australian representative candidate."

"Ludmila Chekov, class one-d representative and Russian representative candidate."

"Sara Welkin, class two-a..." One at a time the class representatives introduced themselves until all of them had been introduced.

"Well, now that's out of the way we can move on to our first order of business, the upcoming class representative tournament. Now seeing as this is a tournament for class representatives I will not being participating." Several of the older students let out sighs of relief, curious. "Now as you all may have noticed during the introductions, only half the second year representatives are personal machine users compared to three-quarters of the first and second years. And from what I've heard the first year will be getting another one. This will mean that the first years are guaranteed a personal machine holder in the round robin, so for the second and third years who don't have a personal machine, can you please lose so only personal machine users make it to the round robin. However I will be facing the winner in a one on one fight." The second and third years were looking absolutely terrified.

"Ahh, can you clear something up." Ichika spoke up. "You said that I would be receiving a personal IS, I haven't heard anything about something like that happening."

"From what I heard they want it for research purposes. Personally there are other ways I would like to research you, but now isn't the time for them." Ichika went deathly pale at the comment, Ludmila could barely keep herself from bursting out laughing. This was going to be an entertaining year. "Now that that's out of the way, we can move onto seating arrangements for the tournament, currently..."

_Courtyard_

Cassandra was making her way to the school courtyard to meet up with some of her classmates to study, all the while hoping her roommate didn't find her. While Sasha was nice, she seemed to have no attention span, which made her the last person she wanted in a study group. How Sasha had gotten enrolled in the school in first place was still a mystery to her. She had just stepped out onto the cross path when a shiver went down her spine.

She turned to her left to see Sasha running towards her, waving her hand in the air "Cassandra."

Great, she had been found by the menace, now to make an escape. "Hi Sasha."

"So what-cha do-in."

"Just going shopping for a bit."

"Ahh, well than I'll see ya later." And with that she was off, she was a menace but thankfully one with a short attention span.

Nizru who had been listening in arrived. "So where were you going shopping, I thought we were going of to study. And last time I checked there is no where worth shopping around here."

"There isn't, I just wanted to send Sasha on her way."

"You know we could've brought her along."

"She has an attention span lasting less than ten seconds, you really think they would make a good addition to our study group. But know that I think of it she might just fit right in." Nizru just rolled her eyes.

"Let' go catch up with everyone. The pair has probably traumatized them by now." Those two can't seem to keep their hands off of each other.

Reaching the library the pair of them found most of the group standing of to one side traumatized, rounding the group Cassandra found the pair in the process of groping each other, in public. Grabbing their shoulders Cassandra pulled them apart. "I you two want to continue go someplace else and stop embarrassing everyone else."

"Awww it was just getting good." Didn't they have any shame.

"You have two options, come with us and study or go somewhere else and make-out. The rest of us don't want to watch you two grope each other." At that point Nizru had come up beside her.

"Only one girlfriend today." The wink that accompanied the comment caused Cassandra to deliver a death glare to the one responsible. The girl completely ignored Cassandra and turned to Nizru, "has she been treating you well." The girl continued on in high spirits despite Cassandra's death glare.

"We're not actually together." Nizru replied.

"Awww, but you'd make such a cute couple."

That was it, "can we please move along, and quit trying to pair me off with people I haven't even known for a month."

"Party pooper." The pair seemed depressed at the thought that they couldn't tease her anymore, serves them right. "Hmm, I was wondering why you don't bring that silver-haired cutie over to the study sessions, she just looks so huggable."

"Sasha, don't tell me you two are interested in her, you already have each other. But if you want to make a move on her you won't be making out in our room."

"Okay." With that the pair got up and left, leading the rest of the party into the library.

"Really, why do I bother sometimes." She turned her head a bit to see Nizru still standing there. "Oh, sorry just talking out loud."

"No its okay. You know I'm not opposed to going out with you." The girl was stuttering. "Only if you're okay with it I mean." What the hell had gotten into everybody, and why where they all trying to pair her off with random girls who she had not shown any romantic inclination towards.


	12. Chapter 7-This is War

_Chapter Seven, This is War_

_Sheng'li, Orbit, April 2015_

Over a thousand Ha'taks clashed in orbit around the world of Sheng'li, neither the forces of Ba'al nor those of Yu had been able to break the others force. It had been a long battle and debris from destroyed ships was scattered across the battlefield.

Jaffa master Joradin looked over the projection of the battlefield as the six Ha'taks under his commands hounded one of Yu's to its death. While both sides had rough numerical parity, the Ha'taks of Ba'al worked in groups focusing their firepower onto a single target. It was proving highly effective as the Ha'tak of Yu floundered as its weakened shields could not block all of the incoming shots with several making it through and impacting the Ha'taks hull. Some shots hit weapon emplacements, destroying them, other hits caused damage to the engine's and shield emitters. After several dozen hits the weapons on the Ha'tak went silent and the shield bubble collasped.

"Hold fire and mark it for the boarding teams," he studied the display for a moment before selecting his next target, "focus fire upon this Ha'tak, it has strayed from its brethren." His command was acknowledged across all the ships in his group. With that done Joradin took a moment to look around the prl'tac, though the room he was in now was not a true pel'tac where he could watch the battle with his own eyes. Rather the room he was in now was located near the heart of the ship, it was hardly the place to be commanding a battle from. The walls and floors of the newer Ha'tak also unnerved him, as the gold and black finishing had been replaced by grey plating. And while the outside remained relatively unchanged it no longer bore any intricate designs, in their place were smooth black or gold plates.

The other Ha'taks in his group followed his Ha'tak lead and fired upon the Ha'tak of Yu he had chosen as a target, it was further out from their main formation than the others making it an easier target than another would have been otherwise. Shots from several other of Yu's Ha'taks were finding marks on his own Ha'taks, but spread out across his entire group like they were they were little more than an annoyance. The Ha'tak he had chosen however suffered the wrath of fire from multiple directions and Ha'taks, almost instantly its shields began to falter under the unrelenting barrage. Its return fire divided up among its attackers proved ineffective against them.

And as the Ha'tak before it, the shields faltered and began letting shots through, impacts across the hull blasted pieces of the Ha'tak into the vacuum of space. Unlike the Ha'tak before it several shots blew through to the Ha'taks reactor, destabilizing the delicate balance sending electrical surges throughout the Ha'tak. Several surges went through the naquadah in the weapons causing them to violently explode, this set of a chain reaction that consumed the Ha'tak sending fragments of it all over the field of battle. The fragments ranged in size from dust to pieces as large as and Al'kesh, Joradin's group had to avoid several of the fragments as their speed and mass would cause serious damage.

Joradin called up the readouts for all the ships in his group and found their condition to be battle worthy, though they would benefit from a few minutes respite to recharge their shields. The feature was a new introduction, and one as a commander he found extremely useful, this was the second battle in which he had employed it. He examined the display closely, but there were no stray Ha'taks of Yu within striking distance that he could easily disable or destroy. "Have our group fall back while our shields recharge." His orders were relayed to the other Ha'taks in the group while he studied the battlefield. In the center two masses of Ha'taks brawled, hundreds of Ha'taks fired thousands of staff bolts across the void at their opposites. He was silently thankful to be on the outskirts of the brawl, picking of targets of opportunity. His group was not the only one taking out stray Ha'taks, another half-dozen groups each composed of several Ha'taks each. For the most part they simply stayed on the edge on the main brawl preventing the main force from being taken from behind while their attention was focused forwards.

He watched as the shield indicators for each of his Ha'taks approached full, all the while keeping an eye on the main display waiting for an enemy Ha'tak to detach itself form the main group. When his groups shields were fully charged no new targets had been kind enough to make it easy for him, he would just have to go to them. His group headed back towards the fray while angling themselves so that if they kept heading straight they would miss it entirely. Now if they were just paying enough attention.

Almost instantly a few Ha'tak broke off to intercept his group. Perfect, the fools have made themselves easier targets. "Focus fire on their lead, alter course to meat them head on." His orders were followed, the group altered its course and opened up with their staff cannons. Dozens of shots impacted the lead Ha'taks shields causing them to waver, but they held out. The return fire was spread across his entire group, but was dispersed enough that it didn't weaken any Ha'taks shields enough to be a concern.

The two groups raced towards each other, all the while staff cannon blasts criss-crossing the rapidly shrinking gap between the two groups. Just as the two groups were about to merge the lead Ha'taks shields weakened enough, and blasts tore into the hull. After taking several dozen hits to the hull the Ha'tak lost power and began drifting. Though it was too early to call it a victory as another dozen Ha'taks of Yu had broken of the main group and were heading towards them. "Pull back, we can't take on this many." His Ha'taks immediately reversed course and headed away from the pursuing Ha'taks.

While it was not the warrior way to shy from conflict, it was not his role in this battle to engage the enemy main fleet, so his group fell back until the pursuing Ha'taks gave up the chase and returned to the battle. "Hold here," the fleeing group stopped falling back, they had been driven a fair distance from the battle, but the time required to return would give them a chance to recharge their shields.

However that would not be the case as Yu's fleet was now withdrawing from the battle, he was about to begin pursuit of any stragglers that could not keep up with the main fleet. "All Ha'taks are to hold position, send boarding parties to any disabled Ha'tak." He let out a sigh, they would not be doing any more fighting, though looking around at the warriors around him, the Jaffa on board his Ha'taks would benefit from a rest before facing the enemy again.

He directed his group to the first of several disabled Ha'taks, while he took a look over the situation around Sheng'li. While Yu's fleet had retreated, they had not fled the system entirely, they had most likely just fallen back while awaiting reinforcements. Unfortunately their presence made it impossible for the Ha'taks in orbit to assist the ground forces fighting on the planet, fortunately the same also applied to their enemies as well.

His attention shifted back to the disabled Ha'tak that warriors from his group were now in the process of boarding. While the Ha'tak was heavily damaged it was still mostly intact, after the Ha'tak had been captured it would be either sent to or towed back to a dockyard where it would be repaired and sent back into battle, their own Ha'taks that were to damaged to continue fighting would be sent back as well.

A few hundred Ha'taks drifted along their last trajectories, powerless to avoid the boarding parties that descended upon them. And judging by the amount of debris present at least a hundred Ha'tak had been destroyed in the battle.

_Sheng'li_

Delang ducked behind a still standing piece of wall, a rarity in the city now, as dozens of plasma bolts flew by him. In the distance he could hear the bursting of small naquadah bombs, the damn catapults were keeping them pinned down in the city as well as knocking down anything that they could use for cover. They had already lost most of their craft, no he should call them speeders now, to the catapults bombs, luckily the Chappa'ai was still outside of their range allowing for an uninterrupted flow of reinforcements. At the moment it was the only thing keeping them from being overwhelmed, as Yu seemed to have six warriors here for everyone lord Ba'al had.

Leaning out he took a quick look at the enemy positions on the other side of what had once been a street. A handful of enemy warriors were standing out in the open, eyes and staffs scanning around looking for targets. Judging by the fact that their armor still had shine to it, they were newly arrived, they would not get the chance to learn how fighting here worked. He rested his rifle against the masonry and took aim, he picked the furthest from his position and waited. When they were all looking away from him he let loose his shot. His aim was perfect, the shot caught the unsuspecting warrior in the chest dropping him instantly, before the first warrior had even hit the ground he had lined up and fired a second shot dropping another warrior. His third just grazed a third warrior who had begun a roll to throw of his aim, it almost worked, he timed his fourth shot for when the warrior had finished his roll. After the third warrior was down he was forced back behind the wall by return fire from the remaining warriors.

Before his opponents could call up reinforcements he was already moving to a new position down the line. He kept to the rubble when he could, firstly to avoid being seen, and secondly to provide some easily accessible cover should he be spotted.

He heard movement up ahead, he immediately dived behind the nearest piece of cover he could find. He took a quick peak out from behind his cover, but couldn't see anything. He ducked his head back down and did his best to pick out the sounds of any movement, but the distant bomb-bursts made it impossible to make anything out. He waited there for several minutes taking occasional peaks out from his cover, nut the scene remained unchanged. He was becoming paranoid.

Deciding to stay put for the time being and see if anyone revealed themselves, he extracted some food from his belt. He reasoned that it would do him no good to starve himself if he planned to continue fighting on.

After he had finished his short meal he decided to wait a moment longer, he was almost immediately rewarded by the sounds of boots on stone. He took a quick peek out from his cover to see several warriors in pitted and dented dull grey armor, all of them holding rifles. They were looking in all directions as they quickly crossed the street towards his position. He had just fallen back behind when the leader came around the corner his rifle sweeping over the whole of his cover before settling on him. His rifle was already leveled at the newcomers face.

"Master Delang?" Good he was a warrior of Ba'al, he doubted his ability to take on so many warriors in confined quarters.

"Yes, now get your boys into cover." The newcomer gave a wave of his hand and five other warriors dropped into cover along side him, another two went farther back and layed down in some of the debris from the remains of a building. And they were really boys, the oldest couldn't have been a few years older than his oldest son, who himself was currently to young to be sent to the front lines. "What have you seen."

"A handful of patrols, there don't seem to be that many warriors in this area compared to further west. They seem to be concentrating their forces there." That matched what he had observed as well, bombs had fallen sparingly on this part of the city. "Master, me and my warriors are willing to place ourselves at your disposal."

"I graciously accept, I encountered several enemy warriors nearby, I managed to kill a few of them but the remainder forced me back. I was looking for a way around when we found each other. By this time they would have moved on so going after them is foolish. We should head towards the westward part of the city, we should be able to find plenty of enemy warriors there. But we are going to stay on the outskirts of the fighting, there is little sense in going into the main fray. We are more effective picking of stray units, than trying to push the main advance back. Understand." The warriors around him gave nods of acknowledgment, turning to one of the warriors looking over the street. "Are we clear."

"Yes."

"Good we're moving out, all of you follow me." He led the way through the streets staying in the rubble when possible, their route lead them west and south towards the where the majority of the fighting was taking place. Along the route they took there wasn't a single intact or standing building, weeks of bombs raining down had reduced the city to little more than a pile of rubble. The citizens had for the most part fled the city to find refuge in the fields, he suspected that several groups of citizens remained in cellars or basements, but he could not prove it.

They made it several blocks before encountering any other warriors, Yu's or Ba'als. The first sign of any trouble was the sound of staff weapons discharging nearby. At the sound of the first staff weapon discharge the entire group went into cover. When no staff blasts came near their position, Delang risked a glance out from the pillar that he was using for cover. Unfortunately he couldn't see anything from where he was so he drew his head back in to not give the enemy a chance to spot it. He could still hear the sounds of battle and it was coming from the direction he had been looking.

Taking another look out he spotted another piece of cover closer to where he estimated the battle to be. He took a quick look around before quickly running up to the corner of a ruined building, the rest of the group moved up taking positions that would allow them to cover him. Looking around the corner he got his first look at the battle. About two dozen warriors with staffs were shooting at a group of warriors taking cover behind some fallen masonry, there couldn't have been more than a few of them given how much return fire was coming from them.

The problem came from a group of warriors carrying staffs and bearing the mark of Yu trying to flank the other warriors, straight into where he was hiding. Fortunately they hadn't realized he was here with another group of warriors. He signaled for the others to come forward, he had them stop before they rounded the corner. Taking another peak out he spotted the group that was heading his way had veered of to their left rather than going to his position. They were trying to make their way over some rubble to get into a flanking position on the pinned down warriors. While their position blocked line of sight from the other side, he had a clear view of them from where he was. They were easy targets.

It didn't take long for a plan to form in his mind and share it with the rest of his group. Three of them stayed with him while the rest went around the building to where they would be behind the main group of enemy warriors. As one he and the three others went around the corner and lined up the half-dozen warriors attempting to get over the rubble. The first four shots found their marks amongst the rearmost warriors. Only three of them fell, the last one managed to let out a scream that alerted his comrades to the attack. The other two warriors managed to bring their staffs around and let off a pair of poorly aimed shots. The first sailed way to his left and went past him to impact some rubble far behind him, the second shot hit the building they were tacking cover behind sending out a shower of pebbles from where it hit.

The last two fell after being hit by two shots each, a final one from himself finished of their wounded comrade. By then the rest of the enemy warriors had become aware of them and had begun firing shots at them, while inaccurate where enough to force him and the three warriors with him back behind cover. He risked a peek around the corner, at least five enemy warriors were firing on their position, and there shots were now flying right past his face, he needed a knew plan that would keep their attention until the other group got in position.

He turned to the other three, pointing to the two of them on his right. "I want you to run across this alley and take cover on the other side." Pointing to the last warrior, "as soon as they go out we will pick them off while their attention is elsewhere. Got it." The other three nodded. "Good, on my signal."

"Go." The pair of warriors burst out from behind the building moving as fast as they could to the opposite side of the alley. Immediately staff blasts started flying past them, but the poorly aimed shots failed to find their marks. He and the other warrior leaned out from behind the building and took aim at the warriors firing on the other two. He aimed up the warrior in the middle of the group and fired, the shot caught the warrior dead center in the chest, while a warrior on the left of the formation dropped to a shot from the warrior beside him. He managed to drop a second warrior by the time they had reacted to his presence. They had just managed to bring their staffs around when they were taken from behind by the other group of warriors he had sent to flank them.

Surrounded and taking fire from all sides the warriors of Yu did not last long, they did die bravely and fighting. One of the warriors he had sent to flank them had been buried in the rubble along with the enemy warriors. They had been pinning down four warriors of Ba'al who had been moving through this section of the city.

The foolish warriors had thought that because of their rifles better accuracy that they could take on three times their number in enemy warriors. Fools were on both sides of this war, and far too many of them were very lucky, making them less cautious. He found it was most prevalent among the younger warriors, though there were old fools as well. And of course their armor still held some shine.

As the warriors spread out in pairs, he approached the leader of the other band of warriors. On his way he picked up one of the discarded staff weapons in his left hand and held it out to the fool, "this can kill you," holding his rifle out in his other hand, "just as easily as this. Or any weapon, no matter how primitive it is."

"I understand Master." The fool didn't mean it and he could tell, well he had tried. There was little point in wasting more time trying to correct him at this point.

They were just about to move out when his ears picked up a faint whistling sound. "Get dow-" A naquadah bomb landed squarely at the feet of two warriors before detonating. Something hit the right side of his chest knocking him back onto his back. He hit the ground hard, he did his best to roll over to cover but it was not an easy task. After making it to cover he took a quick look over what had impacted his chest, it was a piece of masonry. Thankfully it had failed to penetrate his armor, but he would need to remove his armor to insure nothing was broken beyond his body's capacity to heal. Given the pain in his chest at the moment, something probably was, and he had lost both the staff weapon and his rifle when he was thrown down.

As bombs rained down around him, he silently wondered if Jamai'c was having better luck with his task.

_Plains of Sheng'li_

Jamai'c wondered how Master Delang was faring at the moment, trapped in the city as he was. He on the other hand was cut of from any reinforcements, with enemy forces gradually closing in. He had originally been sent out to destroy the catapults from behind, that however had grown into doing his best to cause mayhem behind enemy lines. It didn't help that they seemed to be able to build catapults faster than they could destroy the damn things, and because of them they couldn't stay in one place for to long or else they had bombs falling on them.

They had instead resorted to moving to a position, firing of a few shots then quickly relocating. Thus far they had managed to stay alive, but their enemy had been learning. They had deployed patrols that made it difficult to get to a good position without getting spotted, more and more staff cannons were being deployed as well, meaning their opponents could actually take out their speeders should they get a bead on one. Then they had begun creating a net, trapping him in, then they slowly closed it, reducing the amount of room he had to maneuver and gradually wearing him down with constant run-ins.

He had started out with close to a hundred and twenty speeders, and their crews. He was now down to less than fifty speeders, he had even had to abandon several to keep enough warriors to crew them. The abandoned ones had been destroyed, there had been no sense in letting the warriors of Yu turn them against him. He had even gone so far as to plant explosives that the pilot could detonate to prevent capture of the speeder.

Luckily he had identified what he believed to be a weak point in the enemy net, and one he intended to break through. The point was to the south of his current position, and a fair distance away. And even if he broke through he would be placing himself further away from the city, but at least he would have room to regroup and come up with another plan. He quickly ate one of the few remaining meal packs that they had left, while they had pilfered some from fallen warriors they were quickly running out. Another reason to get out of this death trap while he had a chance, they would starve otherwise.

Finishing his meal, he walked over to where they had parked the speeders while they rested, his warriors had already repacked what little they had taken out. They finished packing in less than five minutes and were moving south as fast as they could without throwing caution completely to the winds.

They actually managed to make it to the southern end of the pocket they were in before being spotted by a patrol of several warriors. A few bursts, from the quad mounted staff weapon and they were dead, but they had already sounded the alarm. Even as they sped on, bombs began falling in a wide radius, centering on where the patrol had been. Several of the bombs landed frightfully close to several of the speeders, thankfully they all made it through. It would be harder going from here now that their opponents knew their location.

They managed to eliminate two more patrols with ease before reaching the enemy's main line of battle. As they approached, as fast as the speeders could go, he could make out the hastily dug waist deep trenches. The warriors in them had leveled their staffs and were launching poorly aimed staff bolts at the approaching speeders. The speeders frontal armor was more than enough to absorb the handful of shots that did find their mark.

The staff cannon emplacements were a whole other matter, situated just behind the trenches, their bolts were fully capable of knocking out a speeder with a single hit. While they were just as inaccurate as the staff weapons wielded by warriors, they still got in a few hits. One of the speeders ahead of him took a hit, the front portion exploding outwards with the rear portion slamming into the ground. A second later the rear portion exploded as the emergency explosives detonated, completely destroying the craft.

His own warriors were returning fire, focusing their efforts on the staff cannon batteries as they sped past. When possible he had opted to lose cannon mounted speeders over quad staff ones, his reasoning was that the greater fire rate would allow his warriors to actually hit their targets while on the move. It was paying off as two of the emplacements were silenced, while an additional three had their crews abandoning the cannons to seek cover.

Then the bombs started falling, a near torrent of them came down right in their path, knocking out another three of his speeders and forcing the rest to change direction. Thankfully his warriors were smart and experienced enough to know that stopping know meant death. There was also the factor of the bombs hitting their own troops as well. The instant the bombs let up, the remaining speeders where through the gap created by the bombs. A few stray bombs still fell, but for the most part the biggest threat came form the remaining staff cannons which were silenced or disabled as quickly as possible.

Enemy troops were closing in from his left and right as he and the others sped towards the outer reaches of the enemy position. The lead speeders were already past the last line of warriors when a second rain of bombs fell onto them. This time over two dozen speeders were hit, including his own.

The impact launched clear of the wreckage and dumped him hard onto his side, a few seconds later the craft exploded as the explosives exploded. Shrapnel went flying everywhere, a piece hit his left shoulder, but failed to penetrate the armor. He was wounded, surrounded by enemy warriors and left with no weapons... He reached over to the arm slot on the armor and withdrew a Zat, correction he was lightly armed with a weapon that would make it difficult to get a kill.

The bombs stopped coming as the enemy warriors closed in, most likely looking for survivors. He rolled on to his stomach to keep himself as low as possible while still being able to shoot easily. The enemy warriors were advancing in loose formation, not really looking, he may actually get one of them. He picked out a warrior a bit away from the rest and away from any cover. He lined his Zat up as best he could and fired.

The first bolt caught the warrior dead center of the chest, a second bolt quickly followed. The warrior dropped dead, the remaining warriors were looking around in confusion, all of them trying to spot him with no success. He lined up a second warrior and loosed a pair of bolts from his Zat downing a second warrior, this also had the effect of alerting the enemy to his location. Staff bolts began flying by him, but his prone position made hitting him difficult. He fired off several more Zat bolts, getting another two hits in but failing to actually kill another warrior.

The remaining warriors were closing, their shots coming closer to hitting him. He contemplated getting up and running, but dismissed it as it would only make him an easier target to hit. He had just fired off another Zat blast when an explosion to his immediate right threw him up into the air a bit before dropping him down on his back.

He stared up at the sky, the pain in every part of his body preventing him from moving. It must have been a staff cannon that had caused that explosion. His mind was wandering through the sea of pain coming from his body. He remembered a different time, when the system lords were ruled by Ra, a time before the acts of the Tau'ri had become the stuff of travelers tales. A time before the war that had and was still in the process of reshaping the galaxy. A time when the Jaffa were the most feared warriors in the galaxy, before that position had been taken by the Tau'ri's Angles of Death.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a warrior approach, he carried a staff, a true weapon of the Jaffa not some Tau'ri look-alike weapon. On the warriors forehead was the mark of Yu, he pointed the staff at Jamai'c's chest, "you have fought bravely and well, but it ends here."

"Then end it." He heard the sound of a staff discharging, then a pain in his chest. And then nothing.

_Renvar, Ba'als Palace_

Ba'al looked over the latest report from Sheng'li, things were not going as he had planned. Already the battle had dragged on longer than he had wanted, and the amount of warriors and ships tied up at Sheng'li was hindering other plans and strategies. While Yu had managed to pin his ground forces down, one of his experiments had borne fruit in space. While the two forces were relatively balanced at the moment, he was starting to get the upper hand in space, and once that was achieved, victory on the ground would be assured.

While he had contemplated pulling out, it would be of little use, plus it would have the added effect of making him look weak to the other system lords. At the moment the fact that he appeared to be able to afford a few hundred Ha'tak at Sheng'li gave the others pause. In reality he couldn't, if he pulled out now it would be an open invitation for the others to attack him. That he had Sheng'li's Chappa'ai firly under his control and that he was slowly gaining control of the space around the planet had left him confident that he could lay claim to Sheng'li. Yu had already lost control of it, now was just a matter of preventing Yu from retaking it.

And Yu was dead set on Sheng'li, to the point where he had been able to capture three of Yu's other border worlds without a fight. They however did not have much value other than farms and small mines. Sheng'li itself was worth more than the other worlds combined.

The only problem was the casualties he was sustaining, he had already lost far to many warriors and ships on this campaign. His only consolation was that, by his warriors reports Yu was suffering heavier casualties than he was by a large margin. Unfortunately Yu seemed to be able to keep throwing warriors at Sheng'li while he was all to aware of how badly he was cutting into his reserves to maintain his foothold. Thankfully no one else beyond him seemed to realize how bad his troop situation was, and attack him while he had nothing to counter an incursion with.

He set aside the casualty report and brought up the report on the performance of the speeders. Using them as a quick striking unit rather than a mainline combat unit had drastically increased the amount of damage they could do. Even though they could still be used as ready-made weapons platforms, he still required something to that would be able to move fast and be able to survive a beating. At the moment all he had was that a shield was a must have on it. He would see what Nerus could come up with later.

Thanks to some simplifications in their design, he had managed to get his Ha'tak production up a bit, but he still didn't have as many as he wanted, especially with Sheng'li taking up so many. His Udajeet and Al'kesh situation was even worse, the result of focusing more on capital ships than on smaller craft. It was so bad that his Ha'taks at Sheng'li had empty hangars, at least Yu appeared to be in a similar situation to him given the lack of small craft in the Sheng'li campaign.

The actual usefulness of Udajeets in combat was questionable. Sure they could strafe ground position, but as the Tau'ri had shown, and the armies of the System lords reinforced, that strafing a prepared target was suicidal. In any other role the Udajeets were absolutely useless, they were poorly armed for air to air combat, and their armor was of little use against most weapons used against them.

He had considered building a redesigned Udajeet with the quad mounted staff weapons as an interceptor, but had dismissed it as he had no need of an interceptor. He was however modifying the current Udajeet design with a new feature.

It had been Yu who had inspired him on this, rather than rely on the sfaff cannons for strafing, he was attaching bombs to the undersides of Udajeets that could be released from inside the cockpit. It allowed the Udajeets to function like Al'kesh but at a much reduced size and in greater numbers.

He took a look back through all the innovations he had created as a result of this conflict and realized that a mere ten years ago all of it would have been considered ridiculous. What did the future have in store for the Goa'uld empire?

_Earth, Pentagon_

"Mr. President." Major Paul Davis stood up from his seat and gave a salute to the president of the United States of America as the man walked into his pentagon office.

"At ease major, I just came here to talk." Davis dropped his salute and sat back down in the chair as Obama sat down in the chair on the other side of the desk. "You said you had the reports ready so I came by to pick them up."

"I was going to drop them off later."

"Don't worry about it, besides it gets me away from all the politics back at the white-house for a bit." Davis picked up the package of reports that he was going to deliver later and handed them to Obama. "Thank you."

"Those would be the report on the galactic situation, while that would be the report on the various proposals submitted by Germany, France, China and Japan for their inclusion in the currently dubbed Stargate Alliance." Obama flipped open that report and began reading.

After a minute in which Davis was wondering what he should be doing at the moment Obama closed the report and looked up. "Well that was certainly interesting, I find it most amusing that China is paying us by canceling out the money we owe them to pay for one of the 303's. I do find myself liking the proposal for 'Home-World Command', nice name and it opens up the possibility for more Earth nations to join. Though it is somewhat restrictive if we go looking for allies off-world."

"Well we knew that when they signed on that each of them would want a piece of the action, I'm just glad all it took was the next few ships to come of the line to get them on board. And it isn't as though we weren't expecting them to propose a joint command for all off-world operations." Among other things. "I take it you went over the short and long lists of countries that were proposed to be added to 'Home-World' Command."

"Yes, and for the most part I find myself in agreement. Though I feel several countries should be moved around on the long list, I can find nothing to object to about the short list. I do feel that France should not have been left out of the initial unveiling, they won't take kindly to that when they do find out. However I do understand the reasoning behind the decision." Obama hefted up the folder of reports on the galactic situation. "Why don't you just give me the summary here rather than me having to go through this entire thing."

"Well, Sheng'li is becoming a killing ground between Yu and Ba'al, at the moment neither one shows any sign of backing off. If current losses keep up Yu and Ba'al will have run out of troops to send in six to seven months, at which point they will have nothing but their garrisons left. At which point the Tok'ra figure everyone else will jump on the two of them and take them down. At the moment it looks like Ba'al has a slight edge, and at the moment we have no idea if he has anymore surprises left up his sleeves to use. Moloc continues his policy of no female Jaffa born, estimates put him at just over a year before his domain collapses, sooner if someone decides to move against him."

"Serves the idiot right, I know the Goa'uld aren't the smartest out there, but Moloc makes the others look smart by comparison. Pity all the Goa'uld didn't have the same level of intelligence as he does, it would make this conflict so much easier on us."

"That it would, instead we have to deal with the likes of Ba'al and Anubis. Neither of whom are going to do something as stupid as what Moloc is doing. Rather those two are the biggest threat out of all the system lords, they won't fall easily. Truth be told, we may not be able to remove them, we may just have to settle for being to much of a hassle to take out."

"You aren't the only one who came to that conclusion. Every other adviser I've spoken with has come to the same conclusion, of course we haven't mentioned it to anybody else. Anything else of note?"

"For the most part the Goa'ul have been fairly quiet outside of Sheng'li, a few skirmishes here and there. As far as we now no planets have changed hands. The Hebridan's are continuing with their build up. Langara, Orban and Galar are doing their best to get some sort of space defense system up, Orban's doing the best of the three at the moment. And SG-1 has another Ancient mystery to solve."

"So, business as usual?"

"Business as usual." Despite the threat of complete annihilation, the world kept on turning. Davis wasn't sure if he found it alarming or comforting.


	13. Chapter 8-Power and Skill

_Chapter Eight, Power and Skill_

_Earth, Japan, IS Academy, Stadium stands, May 2015_

Cassandra Fraiser found the situation in front of her bemusing. The pair, who had less than a week ago been talking nonstop about how cute they found Sasha. Now they were pale white and shivering in the furthest point from the silver-haired girl as they could get. Sasha for her part was completely unaware of the on-goings around her and was instead intently focused on the countdown until the match-ups for the tournament were revealed. Of course with them being a bit early there was still a few minutes until the match-ups were announced.

Nizru and the others had yet to arrive leaving her to deal with what she had believed to be two people fondling a third. What was actually happening given her expectations was quite amusing.

"Twee minutes left." Sasha called out, this was the longest Cassandra had ever seen the silver-haired girl pay attention to anything, and every second she was setting a new record for paying attention to something.

Turning to the pair, "you know I can't see what has you two so scared of her. She's more a danger to herself than anyone else."

"You're wrong, she's a sheep in wolf's clothing..."

The other half corrected, "you mean wolf in sheep's clothing right."

The first half thought about it for a second. "Right, she's a wolf in sheep's clothing. She's a demon wearing human skin, and you feel comfortable sleeping in the same room as her."

"Beyond her short attention span, there is nothing weird about her. Certainly nothing that warrants being deathly afraid of her. Seriously, what happened. A week ago the two of you couldn't get over how cute you thought she was. Now you can't even approach her, it's not like she bites or anything."

"She is a monster, nothing more nothing less."

"Sure," Cassandra rolled her eyes, nothing serious could have happened, could it. Suddenly she wished to remain ignorant of whatever had happened, probably better for her sanity that way. "You do realize how completely ridiculous you two look right now." The pair sat up and looked around to see what had once been an empty stadium was now becoming gradually more crowded. They immediately straighten up and did there best to stop shivering uncontrollably, unfortunately for them in their haste look presentable they forgot where the other one was. The results were quite amusing, pity she didn't think to grab her phone to film it.

It was with the crowd that Nizru and the rest of the group showed up. They all began taking seats with Nizru taking the seat to her right, the girl pushed herself as close to Cassandra as she could manage. Cassandra had to rein in a sigh, why Nizru was hitting on her was a mystery to her, and it hadn't taken her long to figure out that Nizru was. While somewhat faltering, it was really more of an irritation to her, besides she wasn't the least bit interested. But the problem came from how to get that across without hurting Nizru's feelings too much, she didn't want the girl out for vengeance or retribution. That would be troublesome.

Sasha was on her left, nearly coming of the seat with the way she was gravitating towards the overhead screen. One person she wouldn't have to worry about being hit on by, just being hit by. She had came to the conclusion less than a week in to the year that the students here were selected on their ability to use IS units rather than any actual academic ability. She was surrounded by various examples that proved this point, sometimes she questioned earths ability to beat the Goa'uld. Her mind drifted to the various people at the SGC and other facilities in the US and around the world. Okay maybe the current generation can do something, I'm just not so sure about the next generation.

Case in point, Sasha who was now ready to launch out of her seat at the screen overhead. Under her breath, "ancients help her." She really needed help.

"I'd rather they not."

"Huh," she turned to where she thought she heard the reply only to find a very exited Sasha looking up at the screen.

'And twee, two, onee, and there herrrreeeeee." Sashas hands shot up straight in the air startling the poor girl sitting behind her. Her face met the palm of her hand.

"I should start a list of all the mental illnesses I'm going to get while I'm here, I should start with delusional, and maybe insanity."

She looked up at the standings to see how the tournament would play out. Cecilia had mentioned that the exact order wouldn't be determined before hand, but she did say that the first years would be going first followed by the second and then third years. That part at least was there, and it appeared Cecilia wouldn't be going in the first round, instead it was class A against class D.

Her mind went back to the first encounter she had with her room-mate a month ago, Sasha had been brought in by her class representative. Ludmilia Chekov, where had she heard the name Chekov before, definitely Russian, or at the very least eastern European.

She was still trying to figure out where she had heard that name before when the two combatants came out into the arena. General Chekov, that's were she remembered the name from, that would mean Ludmilia, was piloting, something along the lines of her Blitz. Everyone else was about to get beaten, and beaten hard.

Out on the field she could make out some details of the two IS. Ichika's more in line with 'modern' design, colored white and blue with sleek lines and not much bulk. Ludmilia's was almost the exact opposite, grey in color like her Blitz, it sported more hard edges and the thick plating made it look extremely bulky. More bulky to the point that she thought it might even have thicker armor than her Blitz.

Another contrast to Ichka's IS were the very obvious fixed weapon mounts on the wings and shoulders of Ludmilia's IS. Two short barrels extended from the leading edge of the wings, an additional two barrels were mounted on the shoulder, at the moment they were 'upright' and almost doubled the IS's height. Ichika's IS bore some resemblance to the Blitz in that it didn't have any fixed weapons mounted, but the Blitz's frame was more inclined towards Ludmilia's IS.

She took a look up at the screen to see how much time was left until the match started, and discovered another reason as to why Ichika was screwed. While he had six hundred shield points, Ludmilia was sporting twelve hundred, twice as many, not to mention bringing a lot of firepower into play. Ichika had better have some really amazing equalizers or the match would be over quite quickly.

One minute until the match started, well this will either be amazing or short. Either one was fine with her. Truly the universe must have it out for Ichika Orimura to have his first match against something that could easily defeat him. Now that she thought about it, he might actually die if he gets hit by one of the long guns, seeing as his IS has no useful armor.

Ichika Orimura had dreaded the class representative tournament ever since twenty nine hormonal girls had forced him to become their class representative. Personally he suspected it was only to inflate their own egos. Now, now he feared he would not be leaving the arena in one piece, all to satisfy the egos of people he really didn't care that much for in the first place. Damn his classmates for volunteering him and damn his sister for not letting him back out.

And damn his sister again for giving him nothing but a sword on his IS. Sure it was really good sword, but the problem with swords was that you needed to get in close to use it, something he was sure he wouldn't be able to do here. Seriously, four fixed gun mounts on top of whatever weapons could be carried in the arms, whoever had built that IS unit had absolutely no concept of overkill.

He was also pretty sure that the guns on the shoulders of that unit could shred his IS should his shields get to low. At the moment his only plan was Ignition Boost in, without getting shot to pieces, then use Yukihira to take them down, hopefully it's barrier null effect would work against that armor. He really wanted to know who built that unit, first so he could give them a piece of his mind concerning over engineering then to ask them for one. Really, the only thing bad in his mind was the face plate, it could use some work, and who wouldn't want those long barrels.

Chifuyu Orimura looked over the match up Ichika had been placed in and wondered if maybe she should have given him a ranged weapon. Well to late to worry about it now anyways, hopefully he wouldn't completely embarrass himself by forfeiting the match. Good news was, given the match up Tabanae shouldn't have time to interfere, hopefully. The last thing she wanted was to be cleaning up after one of her 'wife's 'social' experiments.

"Ms Chifuyu, maybe you should have given him more than just the Yukihira. He doesn't have any other weapons which leaves him quite predictable."

"Good point, maybe for the next match. Now unless you intend to teach him how to use all of his weapons I suggest you keep your suggestions to yourself."

"But I couldn't possibly take such a responsibility, especially with one of my students." Maya was going into full on freakout complete with a high pitched voice. Chifuyu decided to keep her remaining sanity and not inquire as to what Maya was thinking about.

"Alright start the match."

Snapping out of her hysteria, "but there is still time left."

"I said start the match." Maya didn't move and continued to look at her confused, useless. She moved her hand pass Maya and hit the buzzer to start the match.

"We can start the match whenever, besides it will give our idiot the upper hand seeing as he is prepared."

"What if he's not?"

"Then he'll lose."

He was at the moment contemplating the best way to forfeit the match, at the moment all he had down was use flowery speech. And he had fifteen seconds left. Then the buzzer went off signaling the start of the match.

"Wait I'm going to-" he was cut off as his opponent opened fire. Dropping down he managed to avoid the worst of it, but a few of the rounds found their mark, knocking of almost a hundred shield points. He needed to think of something and fast before his shields fell and he holes punched through him.

He pulled up and back to get out of the way of the oncoming streams of fire and managed to get himself some respite as his opponent readjusted their aim. He used the respite to get a look at his opponent, both shoulder mounted guns had moved into firing position and she had deployed a gun into each arm, that's a lot of firepower there. She won't have much accuracy at range but I have no ranged weapons, he couldn't find a way to win.

He dropped downwards again to avoid the mass of projectiles that went through the space he had just occupied. He then headed to the left to avoid being pinned down, even as he watched his shield point counter slowly fall from stray hits. "I want to forfeit, you can have the match."

"No, I want to shoot something and you're conveniently placed." Well he had to try, he arced upwards to avoid the steady stream of rounds flying at him, he could feel the impacts as some of the kinetic force made it through the shield. If this kept he was going to lose though attrition, he needed to take the offensive and take it now.

In the control room Chifuyu had her hand pressed to her face, that idiot actually tried to forfeit the match, and it had been broadcast to the entire school. Maya had moved as far away from Chifuyu as she could manage.

Ichika ducked underneath another cannon shot, his initial assessment of his opponent dual wielding auto guns had proven inaccurate. One of the weapons being held was a cannon, and one he was fairly sure was going to kill him if it hit. So far his wild maneuvers had prevented him from being hit by the cannon, but his shields were still taking hits from the five auto guns being trained on him. He needed to get in close but his opponent was determined to keep him at a distance, maybe revealing that he didn't have any ranged weapons on him was a bad idea.

So he was stuck dancing around trying to avoid as many rounds as possible that he finally saw his opening. He had just performed a vertical loop and his opponents weapons were pointed away from him, he didn't waste any time and activated Ignition Boost. On his way in he activated Yukihira, the glowing blue beam extending out of the sword base, and he watched as it slowly began to drain his shields. He managed to close the distance quickly enough that Yukihira didn't absorb to much of shields. He brought the blade across in a horizontal strike coming from his left, his aim was dead on the glowing blue blade was going to land right across the IS's midsection.

Less than a meter from hitting the IS the blade struck a shimmering veil of yellow, black and orange, stopping the blade in it's track. That has to be cheating, all of his remaining momentum that was going to go into going past his opponent was absorbed by the veil. Before he had a chance to break away his opponent managed to bring their cannon to bear.

He did his best to move to his right and down even as Yukihira's blade passed through the veil. The cannon fired and Ichika was grateful for Byakushiki's noise dampeners on top of his ears, as even with them the cannon firing caused his ears to ring drowning out all other sound. The cannon's blast sent him spinning away until he came into contact with the ground a few meters below, when had the fight descended so much.

In the stands Cassandra watched as an energy shield appeared in front of Ichika, stopping his attack, well that was unexpected. Ludmilia then used what must have been a three kilogram railgun to blow of Ichika's left wing.

Beside her Sasha bolted up and screamed, "EXPLOSION" at the top of her lungs before preceding to sit back down, a grin was spread across her face. Maybe the pair did have a point in being afraid of Sasha.

He managed to get himself back up, and after a quick check of Byakushiki's readouts learnt that he had lost the match as well as the left wing assembly. What was once the left wing was now scattered all over the ground. And he was silently thankful that it had only been a wing that was hit and not the body, that would most likely have been fatal to him.

A video feed to Ms. Maya appeared on his IS's HUD, while he could see her mouth moving he couldn't hear anything. He was pretty sure his expression looked ridiculous on the other end.

In the control room Chifuyu watched as Maya kept asking Ichika to return to the bay, while the Idiot in question kept on staring back at the screen with a blank look. Moving herself so she was in front of the camera she watched as his eyes darted over to were she would appear on his end. So he could see them at least, she typed out the order to return before sending it to him. The reaction was almost immediate, a slur of what vaguely sounded like an acknowledgment, great now his hearing was out of wack.

"Maya have a medical team standing by in the bay."

"Yes, on it."

Ichika read the order to go to the bay from his IS's HUD and wondered how he was going to manage that with only one wing. And even though the ringing in his ears had stopped he still wasn't able to hear anything, just one more way for the universe to screw him over. Now how to get up to the bay.

He had walked over to the closest point of the arena to the bay and was trying to figure out how he was going to get up there seeing as he couldn't fly the twenty or so meters upwards required to get there. He was still trying to think of a way to get up when suddenly he was airborne, instincts honed over a few weeks of training took over causing him to activate his wing mounted engines. Of which he quickly remembered there was only one of now. The unbalanced application of thrust sent him spinning around, switching the direction of thrust coming from the wing he began to counteract his spin. He had just managed to stop his spin when the floor of the bay was less than a meter from him, without any upward force gravity took over and slammed him down onto the floor.

Picking himself up of the floor he spotted his sister at the other end of the bay with her forehead pressed against the palm of her right hand. Was it really that bad, luck had certainly not been with him today.

_Later_

Cassandra resisted the urge to yawn as the fight dragged into its second hour. A duel between two snipers was not all that interesting to watch. It had started out interesting, with both units circling the arena firing shots. Cecilia's blue IS deploying several pods that attacked her brown colored opponent from multiple directions. Then the fight had moved out of the arena, while the occasional shot flew overhead nothing much happened.

She was the last one awake at the moment, the pair had fallen asleep in each others arms, Sasha was using her left arm as a headrest while Nizru was using her right shoulder as a pillow. It was a configuration that left her unable to move. Which meant she couldn't get up and get food, food would have been much appreciated right now. She was just thankful her stomach had yet to protest the lack of food yet, that would disturb some people.

Really there should be a time limit on matches to prevent them from dragging on like this. Ironically she wasn't sure who she wanted to win. On one hand she enjoyed the idea of her class winning the tournament, and to do that Cecilia had to win this match. On the other hand the winner of this match had to go up against Ludmilia, and given what happened to Ichika, she wasn't sure Cecilia would come out of it alive.

A blue bolt shot over head, quickly followed by a yellow one heading in the opposite direction. This was going to take a while. On the screen they were fairly evenly matched with both of them having almost the same amount of shield energy left.

After some consideration she decided that the people around her had the best idea, and simply sleep until the end of the match. Besides she wasn't going anywhere without disturbing someone. She let her eyelids fall down and discovered that her body was eager for some sleep.

_Later_

She had been expecting to wake up to the sound of the buzzer signaling the end of the match, she had not expected to wake up to being in the embrace of the people on either side of her. And at least one of them had wandering hands. She let out a sigh before using her arms to find the faces that were pressed against her arms. A quick push and she was free of the unwanted double embrace. Sasha arms were flaying wildly above her, probably trying to find her again. Nizru looked disappointed, well she had found the owner of the wandering hands, great now she would really have to watch herself around Nizru less she get dragged into a compromising position.

Stretching out her arms while ignoring the drama around her she took a moment to check the screen. It seemed Cecilia had won the match while she had been asleep. Which meant Cecilia was facing off against Ludmilia now.

Cecilia was facing off against Ludmilia right now. Out in the arena the two of them had just taken their places and the countdown to the beginning of the match had already started. She quickly excused herself and made her way to the top of the stadium were it would b easier to get onto the arena.

She made it to the top without drawing more than a few glances her way. She was about to deploy Blitz when the rational part of her mind pointed out that this was a stupid idea. Taking a moment to think he decided that she would only interfere if Cecilia was in danger. Unlike Ichika Cecilia didn't need to stay within range of Ludmilia to attack, she was a long range combatant, and if the last match had proved anything was that Cecilia knew how to fight at range. Maybe Cecilia could win, and if things started to go bad she would jump in.

The timer finished counting down and the buzzer went off signaling the start of the match. She had expected Ludmilia to immediately open fire once the match began, instead she was surprised when Ludmilia charged head on at Cecilia.

Cecilia was obviously surprised as well as she only managed a single panicked shot into Ludmilia's shield before the shimmering yellow shield slammed into Cecilia. The blow took a big chunk out of Cecilia's shield and sent here flying backwards before she could recover. Ludmilia's shield became extraordinaly deformed by the impact but no damage was dealt to the IS shields she was using.

While Cecilia was recovering Ludmilia managed to get a bead on the blue IS. She could almost here the roar of the guns as Ludmilia unleashed shots into Cecilia at a range she couldn't miss at. And from the way Cecilia was jerking she was feeling the blows.

She had to intervene now. Before she had even finished the thought Blitz had appeared around her and she was flying out on to the field. She was going to get Cecilia out of there before Ludmilia killed her.

She barely registered the proximity alert before the blow caught her on the left shoulder, the blow sent her spinning out of control. Rather merely right herself to be caught in her assailants sights, she opted to go with the roll diving before pulling back up and around to come face with her assailant. She needed have bothered with the fancy maneuvering as her attacker hadn't attacked again, rather they were simply floating there facing her.

The IS facing her was similar in design to both the Blitz and the Buster, they were pointing a hammer of all things at her. So the Canadian representative has finally shown herself, but why here and now? Dammit she couldn't waste time like this, she searched around for where Cecilia and Ludmilia were. She thought she caught sight of her goal behind the Canadian, great she would have to fight to get there and she didn't have time.

She made a move to go around. "Do not interfere," deep, commanding and without fear. Well so much for that idea.

"Stand aside." She replied, doing her best to come across frightening or intimidating, she didn't think it worked given that they didn't move. The hard way then. "So you won't move."

"I will not."

"Then I'll force you to move." With that she launched two full boxes of grenades set to proximity at her opponent, before launching straight up. It should have bought her enough time to get around, it didn't. Instead her opponent launched several objects into the cloud of grenades causing them to detonate before she could take advantage of the distraction. She was also heading in the opposite direction that she needed to.

She immediately reversed course only to have her opponent intercept her. Without wasting anytime she called up the three kilogram railcannon and opened fire at what was almost point blank range. Her opponent barely managed to avoid the three kilograms of iron launched at supersonic speeds, but it still missed. But it did force them out of position which was all she needed. She flared her engines pushing herself forwards at high acceleration, quickly gaining speed. She had done it, she had gotten past the other IS.

Her victory was short lived when three rounds impacted her left side, their momentum just enough to force her away from her desired route. Dammit, they just wouldn't give up would they. She broke to the right hard to avoid another trio of shots only to end up getting peppered by auto gun rounds. She proceeded to dive to get out of the line of fire. Several rounds flew past over top of her but she had gotten out of the worst of it.

Spinning around she brought her own cannon to bear lined up her opponent, only to have them swerve out of the way. Frustration building she lined up another shot and simply fired, unsurprisingly it didn't find it's mark. She managed to avoid all but one of the trio of return shots fired at her. Another shot from her cannon went wide, as her opponent went on with random evasive maneuver, countering while she was recharging the cannon. She wanted to scream in rage, why couldn't they simply stay still.

After another missed shot she dismissed the cannon and called up a pair of IS combat knives before charging in at full acceleration. Her opponent tried to accelerate away from her, but without wing mounted weapons cutting into engine space she had more thrust to use and was able to close the gap. They managed to get off a trio of panicked shots, which she ignored, before they dismissed their cannon. "Just fall already." They didn't have time to draw another weapon as she slammed into them, instead they settled for catching her arms.

It dissolved into a contest of strength in which they were evenly matched. Then the wing mounted weapons came around, while they reduced the amount of space available for the engines they were effective if you didn't need to move. A short burst and a kick forced her to back off, her opponent used the opportunity to gain altitude.

She was just about to pursue when a pair of explosions occurred on her chest plate, followed by her shield depletion alarm going of. She had manged to lose over seventy five percent of her shield, when did that happen. "Shit." She was no longer in a favorable position, even if she managed to take out her current opponent there was no guarantee that she could take on Ludmilia. She needed to end this now if she would have any chance against Ludmilia.

She had unfortunately distracted herself for a second which her opponent took full advantage of, their hammer appeared in their hands as they charged Cassandra. She managed to catch the blow on her arms, but it still took of a significant portion of her shield. It also had the side effect of pushing her downwards, the pair of them were quickly loosing altitude.

The impact with the ground knocked out the last remnants of her shield, her HUD informed her of damage to the IS's rear components. She swung her arm at her opponent only to have them catch it and force it across her chest. A quick shove from her legs managed to throw her opponent off of her, they merely backed up slightly and drew a cannon and aimed it at her chest.

"Yield, you have lost."

"We'll see about that." Another roll got her out of the line of fire and enough time to draw a weapon. Only to have a round pass just in front of her helmet.

"You have lost, next time I won't intentionally miss. And at this range your armor won't be enough to stop a cannon round." Dammit, they were right, at this range it her armor simply couldn't provide adequate protection to the head, which was right were they were aiming. "Will you yield."

"No, I have to help Cecilia, tha-"

"In case you haven't noticed that fight was resolved long ago, now will you yield. Or do I have to start punching holes in that armor of yours."

"Fine, I yield. Now are you happy."

"I am content." With that they dismissed their cannon. She then expected them to turn around and begin moving away giving her a chance to strike. Instead they lifted off and while still facing her began flying away, she felt her frustration build until she lashed out at the ground with her fist. They couldn't even give her a proper opening so she could pummel them, preferably to small pieces.

_Later_

Chifuyu looked across her desk at the blond haired girl standing opposite of her. Frustration, anger, rage, the girl had them in spades. Cassandra Fraiser, the American representative candidate. One of the two students responsible for the mess during the tournament.

"Now I don't think I need to explain why you're here Ms. Fraiser."

"Broke school regulations and all that fun stuff, I've already gotten the lecture a half dozen times now." The message had obviously not gotten through, which seemed to happen with just about every student here, especially the representative candidates. Honestly, just because they got a personal IS does not make them invincible or above the law.

Really it would be easier if they just learned that the easy way, instead of the painful expensive hard way. "Then I see no reason to go over it again. Now you will have to suffer the consequences of your actions, no matter how noble the intentions behind them."

"Cecilia's in the hospital. You really think I shouldn't have done what I did."

"You accomplished nothing. You failed to aid Ms Alcott. And you needed have worried yourself about it in the first place as we have instructors who are trained to deal with exactly that kind of situation."

"All that would have happened was any instructors you sent ending up just like Cecilia. They would have had no idea what they were getting into."

"And you would?"

"Yes." Some people had way to much confidence in themselves.

"Yet you were beat, rather soundly if the replay is anything to go by."

"If they hadn't caught me off guard with that first blow and if I wasn't trying to get to Cecilia I would have won."

"What if, what if. The what if is irrelevant, a thousand things could have gone differently, but the fact remains that you lost this time. Next time might be different, but the fact remains that you were defeated in single combat by your opponent." Taking out a sheet of paper. "These are the details of your punishment, you are expected to follow them. Rest assured I have spoken with the other parties involved in this matter and issued out punishments for them as well, so do not believe you are being singled out." The talk with the Canadian representative candidate had been interesting. "Now I have other duties to attend to as well."

The girl took the paper before storming out. Chifuyu had to let out a sigh, she really wished she could institute some actual punishments rather than the slaps on the wrists she was forced to give out. The threat of expulsion would probably work well enough, unfortunately there was way to much money coming from the students home countries to do something like that.

Doing a quick check of the room to make sure the door was locked and that no one was around, she opened up her desktop. Let's see what Tabanae makes of the tournaments events.

She had just logged in when Tabanae's face appeared in a pop up window on the screen, something caught her eye. "Hello Tabanae, any particular reason I see you on my computer screen."

"I was hopping you could do something er-"

"No."

"Awww, Chi-chans no fun." Tabanae put on a pouty face. "Or did you want me to-"

"NO."

"Awww, no fun. I even had on my spec-"

"I'm here to talk business, unless you are as well I'll leave."

"Pooye, so what did you want to talk about." Tabanae only sounded half interested.

"I'm sure you can figure it out."

"What happened at the tournament, involving the IS's of the American, Russian and Canadian representative candidates. Am I right."

"Yes, I've sent you my preliminary observations, but I want to hear it from you what you make of the situation. And the IS units."

"Well I'll start with the IS units themselves. They have been built with heavy combat in mind, everything else about them stems from this. Feasible armor, from what I observed these three units could fight without their shields against any one not fielding anti armor weapons. Their shield capacity is quiet frankly absurdly massive, again heavy combat units, they must be using extra battery packs to augment their shield energy supply. Then there are their engine units, which at the moment have me completely stumped." Chifuyu blinked, Tabanae was never stumped, frustrated yes, stumped never. "I can't figure out how they managed to get so much power out of their engines. The calculated power to weight ratio is nearly fifty times that of surface to space rockets, before factoring in loads."

"Their weapons loadouts are also out of the ordinary, not one of them has an energy based weapon. Though that could also be them not using one as well. Beyond that the only other thing of note about the IS's themselves would be the Busters second shield, or primary in this case. I have no idea what it is, it is obvious what it is meant to be, as Ichika demonstrated, a disposable shield. Useful for countering one attack, and as demonstrated a nasty surprise for anyone not expecting it. The active inertial canceler would have been a better choice for a brawler unit, though this system being used does protect against surprise attacks."

"More or less what I concluded as well. And despite being from three different countries they all look relatively the same, though I'm not surprised by the American and Canadian units being similar."

"Well until a month ago I wasn't even aware the Canadians were running an IS program, still the Aile could be their take from a joint project. Which would also explain why the Blitz and Aile are near identical. What really surprises me is America and Russia working together, though I have suspected that for a while I would have to say it's confirmed now."

"So we have a potential Russian American block forming."

"Don't forget about Canada, they're part of it too."

"That just makes it worse, if they get china on board to they would have pretty much half of the worlds industry. Though I don't see that happening anytime soon, though I also didn't see Russia and America working together so I suppose anythings possible."

"I'm worried, there's something we're missing here. Something that I believe connects all these anomaly's together." Tabanae was truly scared of this, worst part is she's probably right.

Cassandra looked over the punishment she had been given as she made her way to the infirmary where Cecilia was currently resting. Looks like she would be on classroom cleaning duty for the next two months. She silently hoped that the Canadian representatives candidates punishment was worse than hers for what happened to her and Cecilia.

Entering the near empty infirmary she made her way over to Cecilia's bed past rows of unused beds on either side of her. She had come here to see if she could ask how Cecilia was feeling, but when she arrived Cecilia was already asleep. She stood there for a moment before turning to leave, she stopped when she felt a pressure around her wrist. Turning around she saw Cecilia wide awake and holding onto her.

"I see your awake."

"Yah."

"How you feeling."

"Fine for the most part, just some scrapes and bumps, should be out of her by the end of the week. I'm more worried about you though, you were the one that got slammed into the ground not me."

"I'm fine, really there's no need to worry about me. Just get some rest, the rest of the class will sorely need their class representative back."

"I never did get to thank you for what you tried to do."

"All I ended up doing was getting beaten."

"It's the thought that counts, besides it was kind of sweet of you to go through all that trouble for me. What's that in your hand?"

Hiding the sheet of paper that she had been holding. "Oh this, it's nothing."

"You got in trouble didn't you." Why was she so easy to see through. "Still, you were doing it for me, and it was a sweet gesture."

What was with the sweet, was that some British turn of phrase. "Well it's good do know that your fine."

_Later_

Cecilia watched Cassandra leave the infirmary. She had thought for the longest time that she would end up with some useless guy or no one at all. That had been the case until she met Cassandra, she had never thought she would fall for a woman. But here she was, besides Cassandra was cute sometimes, but above all she was like a prince to her. Rushing in without head to save the damsel, despite said damsel being fully capable of taking care of herself.

She wondered when it had first been that she had begun to view Cassandra as more than just a friend. Was it after she had removed herself from the pool for class representative, that was a moment she would never forget. Or had it been when she had rushed in to save her at the tournament. In the end it was trivial, it had been when Cassandra had come to visit her that she realized how she felt. Besides it wasn't like Cassandra was hard on the eyes either.

Cassandra would be hers, and nothing would prevent that from happening.


	14. Chapter 9-Blood on the Horizon

_Chapter Nine, Blood on the Horizon_

_Hammond's office, SGC, Earth, May 2015_

O'Neill walked into General Hammonds office just as the general was setting his phone back into its receiver. Hammond himself did not look very happy about the conversation. "To what have we been accused of this time, may I ask."

"Just some republican getting antsy about our 'violation of army procedures'."

"I am guessing he means the handful of regulations that we threw out years ago."

"The very ones."

"I hope you told them how many people we would have to kick out if we implemented those regulations. Not to mention how many the international personnel we would lose. Besides it's not like there hurting people, hell too many of those people we need. Ferretti being the first one that comes to mind, how many other guys can claim they steal spaceships for a living. Canada wouldn't have backed us back in the day if we hadn't have gotten a by from 'Don't ask, don't tell. Can't these people move forwards, why do we even listen to them in the first place."

"Because they control the flow of money, which we need, and they can't get past that the world isn't being saved exclusively by straight white men. Good news is with more countries on board we won't need to rely on them so much for money and there will be less tolerance for political shenanigans."

"I wonder if I'll miss them when they stop poking their heads over our shoulders." Hammond just gave him the look. "Probably not."

"So what did you come down here for, it certainly wasn't to hear about my phone call."

"I was hoping you had a mission for us, Daniel's going nuts trying to figure out what we found last time and could use something to distract him."

"Right now I don't have anything, but if something comes up I'll let you know."

"Thanks, Daniel on the verge of going crazy."

"I thought we all passed that point a long time ago, listen to the politicians for a minute and you would believe we've all gone crazy."

"Well you know what I think of most of the politicians in charge anyways, greedy bastards want all the power and money for themselves but don't want to do anything to get it."

"I wish that weren't the case, not for the first time I've wondered what kind of world, no, galaxy we're going to leave behind for our kids and grand kids. In my case it'll probably be great grand kids." Both men gave a chuckle at the last comment.

"I heard about what happened with Cassie, she's too young to be doing what she's doing." The short lived humour had drained from the conversation.

"I've already brought it up with the president, and I was overruled. You think she can move past her past?"

"I don' think that's the problem, she's seen what we do and wants to emulate us, but she doesn't have any experience or training to do that without ending up in more trouble."

"That's just it isn't it, she has a notion and getting it out of her will be tough, I only hopes she can realize that before something serious happens." That was one thing thing they couldn't do anything about. "She reminds me of my children when they were that age."

"The only difference here is the stakes, your kids weren't using high end military hardware at that age." Both of them looked down, there was little point in continuing. They exchanged a quick nod before he turned and left, trusting Hammond to a mission for his team. The conversation unfortunately brought up memories of his own failed marriage and Charlie. Then again there was always John.

_Johnathan O'Neill's apartment_

John looked over the latest set of math problems and had to resist the urge to laugh as he solved them in a matter of minutes. Benefits of having already gone through high school and joined the air-force for a few decades, even if that was only in his memories. He was currently top of his class in math, it was stupidly easy when you had already done it once. Still he had to pay attention lest he fall behind.

He really hated having to redo high school, when he had finished it the first time. The drama, the getting to know yourself bits, he hated it all. Those were back, and they had taken what little fun there had been out, with all the things you couldn't do now. The nostalgia had worn off well before the halfway mark on his first semester.

One part he definitely did not remember at all was the profs holding him back from learning more advanced stuff, even though he showed he understood the material better than the profs. Which was really annoying.

The girls were definitely different than what he remembered, gone was the conservative attitude he remembered. Rather they had adopted a high and mighty attitude, they seemed to think he was cheating on tests merely because he was doing better than they were. It was quite amusing how they tried to catch him doing something he wasn't doing, they would get better grades if they focused more on doing the test than trying to catch him cheating.

He finished up the work before packing it all away to be handed in tomorrow. For the dozenth time he wished he could simply skip the tediousness of high school and get on with real life. He hadn't been fishing for almost three years now, something was wrong with this world.

_Anubis's base, Tartarus_

Anubis went over his invasion plans once again, trying to find any flaws that he could. For the dozenth time he could find no way to improve his chances of success without jeopardizing something else. Development of his new fighter craft had been all but halted, the handful of constructed models being used for testing. The new model Kull warrior project had also been put on hold, it had simply become to costly in terms of resources to keep it up with all the failures it had produced. So with the exception of some still working on it, its resources had been put to enlarging his existing Kull force.

He was under no illusions as to how a fight between him and the Tau'ri would play out on the ground with his current arsenal. He needed the new fighter craft and Kull if he wanted to crush the Tau'ri. For now he would content himself with readying the way with what he had, he still had several other obstacles he needed removed before he went after the Tau'ri. The other Goa'uld system lords would need to be trimmed down a bit so he would have less System Lords going after him while he went after the Tau'ri.

Leaving the command room he made his way over to the central hall where the Kull were being gathered for his first strike. From the walkways he could see the lava flows going around the base rendering it unassailable from the ground. Shimmering shields blocking the majority of the heat coming off of the lava as well as preventing direct contact with the lava. It wouldn't do to lose his base to something so mundane as it being melted.

He emerged onto the main balcony overlooking the central hall, his invasion force had gathered and was just preparing to embark. Anubis looked over the assembled Kull warriors, three hundred thousand in all. All of them standing in neat rows and columns. The first-three quarters of them were regular Kull while the back quarter was his 'heavy' Kull. On the far side of the hall were over two dozen Ha'taks that would take the Kull to their destinations. Many of which he had acquired from various system lords over the past months. His own Ha'taks would be escorting them seeing as they were stronger and not going to be weighed down by warriors.

He had another two million Jaffa warriors ready to fight alongside his Kull, they would be going in the second wave to secure the worlds he planned to take. He wished he could send more, but at the moment he didn't anymore to send without compromising his border garrisons. The Ha'taks would drop the first wave in, while the second would go through the Chappa'ai to their target worlds.

His armies were poised and ready to strike, soon they would take to the field and crush his enemies and pave the way for his eventual ascension to supreme system lord. He even had a very good target for his armies to crush, one who had been a thorn in his side for quite some time. One who also imitated him, which was annoying because it destroyed the originality of his personality. It was truly a pity Sokar, but there could only be one dark god of the Goa'uld, you have to go. He couldn't have someone as smart and powerful as Sokar sitting at his back.

Once Sokar was out of the way he could focus on bringing down several of the other system lords. With any luck Ba'al and Yu will have exhausted themselves in their fight over a single planet, which would make them easy targets. Once he managed to acquire their territory there would be no system lords capable of going against him. Then the Tau'ri would fall, and the last threat to him with them.

"All warriors, embark!" With that the warriors began loading onto the nearby ships in preparation of their upcoming invasion.

_Testing Grounds, Renvar_

Two hundred designs, fifty prototypes, and not one that is fit for the testing grounds, let alone actual combat. At least the last one actually managed to complete the tasks, even if it was more through the pilot being a complete lunatic, and not willing to give up. It is extraordinarily unlikely that they would manage it a second time, unlikely seeing as they had reduced the vehicle to a smoking wreck accomplishing the last objective.

This project had become significantly more complicated than he had imagined was possible when he had first begun it. His biggest problem was powering the damn machines, the Speeders used a collection of liquid naquadah power cells which had worked out fine. He had tried to do the same thing with these new machines only to have them be underpowered or overburdened. Sometimes both. There was simply no way to power a shield, weapons and a drive system using liquid naquadah, it was simply to demanding on the cells to be feasible.

Using a reactor would provide enough power, but it forced the whole machine to become to large to become practical in combat. He had been looking for a way to reduce their the reactor size, there had been some success in that he had dropped the size of the reactor, but it was nowhere near small enough for his purposes. Well at least he was making progress somewhere.

He left his personal lab to go and check up on Nerus and how the worm was doing on his own project. His Jaffa had brought back several relatively intact Kull corpses. He had set Nerus to work figuring out how they worked, the initial findings were, interesting, and, he only admitted to himself, horrifying. Anubis had managed to figure out a way to brainwash symbiotes to the point where it couldn't be undone, at least with his repertoire of tools. Not to mention that Anubis had found a way to achieve it on a large-scale.

That had been the first of many discoveries they had uncovered about the Kull. Their armour and weapons were initially total mysteries to the pair of them. Testing and dissembling had uncovered some of the answers they sought, but many more still eluded them. The benefits he would gain by uncovering their secrets was easy to see, non projectile rapid fire weapons, armour that could withstand multiple hits, micro reactors.

Entering the lab where the Kull were being examined, Ba'al could see multiple holographic diagrams displaying a variety of information. From detailed schematics of some piece of armour, to notes concerning today's doings, to the Kull's genetic makeup. The handful of tables were occupied by partially disassembled pieces of Kull armour, the Kull themselves having been disposed off once all useful information had been extracted from them.

Nerus was leaning over one of the tables intently examining something, it was then that Ba'al realized that there was a distinct lack of half eaten food scattered around. While that was a pleasant surprise from the normal mess of half eaten food, it did leave him to wonder what could have gotten a hold of Nerus's attention to the point where food was ignored. This was going to be interesting.

Making his presence known to Nerus via loud noise, he watched with some amusement as Nerus nearly jumped of the floor from being startled. "My lord, you surprised me."

"No need to be surprised, I was just coming down to make sure you were still working." He did a quick invisible check of his personal shield to make sure it was still working.

"I can assure you that I was working."

"Oh that I can see, now tell me what have you found."

"Well I was looking over one of the Kull's plasma repeater when I noticed something... Weren't you going to oversee the testing of the prototypes?"

"That has already finished."

"What, it couldn't have finished that fast." No wonder Nerus hadn't gotten anything to eat.

"It wasn't over fast, you lost track of time from the look of things. Now tell me what has you so interested."

"It's the way Anubis set up the repeater, its pure genius. Rather than have all the pumps feeding into a single reservoir, he has each pump going into a separate reservoir. This allows it to fire repeatedly, of course each shot is weaker and it overheats after several shots. I didn't notice it before because the set up looked near identical to the single shot set up, it was only after closer examination that I found the critical difference."

"So we can build our own."

"Close but not quite, there are still somethings to sort out first, cooling for one is an issue, as if it gets to hot the components will melt. With the single shot this wasn't a problem, as the mechanisms had time to cool in between each shot. The true beauty of this set up is that we can apply it to larger weapons as well, just think repeating staff cannons. Anubis is a genius and a fool, genius for creating it and a fool for not applying it. Now the trick will be applying it properly, if we wish to avoid the foolish mistake that Anubis made."

"Have you made any progress on the armour."

"Not much I'm afraid, I was focusing on the weapons, which I might add I made progress on."

"How fortunate for you."

"I even have several ideas of how we can apply the repeater, for instance, you know your new rifles..." This was going to take a long time.

_Colson Industries Main Office, Earth_

Dr. Samantha Carter walked into the main foyer of Colson Industries head office, they were one of several subcontractors hired by the SGC to work on certain projects. Being an aero-tech industry their projects often overlapped with hers, namely the F-302 and 2G-IS projects. They had even worked on some of the parts for the D-303, X-304 and 3G-ISP projects. She spotted the familiar face of Alec Colson standing beside a brown-haired man she didn't recognize, Colson waved her over.

"It's good to see you again Mr. Colson." She extended her hand which Colson took.

"Likewise Dr. Carter, May I introduce my new Chief engineer..."

"James Attica." The other man, Attica extended his hand which she took.

"Samantha Carter." She responded to his introduction.

"Now that we're all introduced, why don't we move to another venue to have our conversation." Colson lead them into his private conference room, the three of them took seats around the low table in the center of the room. She was on one side of the table while Colson and Attica were on the other side.

"Before we begin, may I inquirer as to what happened to your previous Chief Engineer." She wondered what had happened to Dr. J. Phil.

"Old Phil retired last month, and James here is an up and coming engineer. Brilliant, and full of new ideas, which are very welcome in this industry." Colson answered.

"I see."

"Well shall we get down to business. Over the phone you mentioned that you wished to change the terms of our contract."

"Not entirely, it's more seeing if you're interested in a new project."

"And our current contract?"

"If I remember correctly it ends in a few weeks. The Air-Force was impressed with your work and is wondering if you would like another contract."

"Why not simply renew the current one?"

"Things have changed since the original contract was agreed upon, the original contract is no longer viable for us." She pulled out a packet of papers from her briefcase and slid them across the table. "These are the technical specifications for the next contract." Attica picked up the package and began leafing through it.

"I was under the impression that the current contract was sufficient for the Air-Force."

"It was, however with the introduction of 3G-IS we have had to do some upgrading to our equipment. Which necessitates new parts."

"Evidently, what do you make of it Chief."

"It looks doable."

"Alright, we're interested then. Now how much is the Air-Force offering for this..."

_Daniels Study, SGC_

Dr. Daniel Jackson was going over his notes on the new variations of the Ancient language discovered on his last mission with a 'language expert' from area fifty-one. They were going over the one part that was recovered that had been translated, comparing what was said in it to old earth legends. "...and I've told you for the dozenth time, Atlantis was a thought exercise created by Plato. It was never a real place."

"But maybe he had some real inspiration for it. Lantean is almost the same as Atlantean. Maybe the 'at' preffix means something." He had been over this with every 'expert' they sent to work with him, she had evidently seen the Atlantis specials on the history channel.

"That's under the assumption that the two are related at all. Which I have yet to see any evidence for, coincides do happen."

"After all that's happened to you, you still believe in coincides. Do you really believe something can be a coincidence after being ascended, dying and coming back a dozen or so times, on top of having an ascended being for a guardian angel."

"Yes. The universe isn't run by some omnipotent being. Some things happen all on their own."

"Fine then, But at least humour me. What if their were related, through some means and you knew that."

He let out a sigh he was holding, she wasn't going to give up on this. He briefly wondered if Oma had a hand in this, but it didn't seem likely. "If they are related, then yes the 'at' prefix could be important, but I don't know what it could mean. Unless, it's a translation error when the legend of Atlantis was translated into English."

"We could also be looking at us mistranslating from the original script, are you sure it said Lantea, no extra prefixes or suffixes." He wouldn't admit it out loud, but she could be right about that. He quickly grabbed up a copy of the original text mentioning Lantea.

"..'and so the cowards stole Lantea and fled from the sea of fire lights. Abandoning their allies to face the great death by themselves'. Sorry no missing characters." He quoted one of the passages, he had not missed any characters when he translated it. It did however give him an idea, passing off the text to her, he grabbed his tablet. A few sweeps later and he had the document he was looking for.

"What are you looking for?"

Holding the screen to her, "this." The screen was displaying an Ancient to Latin script conversion, it had taken him a few years of research to compile the whole thing. He was currently pointing at one of the symbols and it's translation. "Is the ancient 'letter' for 'ea'," pointing to the next symbol down, "is the one for 'eas'. Their written near identical, with only a slight change in how their written altering how they sound. It's possible that 'eas' became 'is' over the years. Now for the 'at' prefix, it's entirely possible that it came in some time later." He put the tablet back down before taking the text back and setting it back down on the table.

"So it's Atlantea." Daniel's head snapped right back up.

"What did you say."

"So it's Atlantea, why?"

"Why didn't I see it before."

"What?"

"The 'at' prefix isn't from the original Greek version but an English addition to it. It should be at Lantis, not Atlantis. Now where did I put that book by Plato." He began rummaging through his book but was interrupted when the door opened and Jack walked in. "What is it Jack." The last thing he wanted right now was a distraction.

"Hammond has a mission for us. And you need the fresh air."

"This better not take long." He muttered under his breath.

_O'Neill, Ida Galaxy_

Heavy kinetic rounds impacted the green-blue surface of the planet below causing massive flashes of light where they hit. Secondary weapons tore through the replicator ships attempting to ascended out of the planet's gravity well, none of them managed to escape. This was the tenth replicator world to be hit by his fleet, it was a pity that they had to destroy such pristine worlds, but the replicator menace had to be eliminated completely. Thor felt some regret as the ships in the fleet moved into position for the second phase of orbital bombardment, another world capable of supporting life was about to be lost. Neutrino Ion bombs were loaded into the spinal mounts, all the ships reported loading was complete.

"Commence firing." Two dozen bombs accelerated out of the spinal mounts, each one heading a fraction of the speed of light. The impacts were near simultaneous, for a brief instant the light from the explosions covered the entire planet in a white glow. The glow faded to reveal a vastly different world then what had been there before. Gone were the blue bodies of water and the green plant-life, replaced by a red glow from the magma pools that had formed in the blast craters, each the size of a continent. Webs of red cracks surrounding black hunks of rocks that had once been landmasses above and beneath the waves.

His sensors were picking up trace amounts of gasses from the planet twice as far from the planet as they normally would be. "Prepare second volley." They had already come this far, little point in stopping now, better to insure the replicators were gone than risk any of them surviving. Another volley of bombs impacted the planet, destroying the remaining land, resulting in a surface of molten rock. One of the few environments guaranteed to destroy replicator blocks, the amount of heat would completely melt them. Another world rendered dead, it was hardly the first, just another world in a long list of casualties in the replicator war. It was also unlikely going to be the last world to suffer such a fate.

His com unit indicated it had an incoming message, he activated it to be presented with Odin. "Yes."

"Varja's fleet was defeated by the replicators, the remaining ships are heading to your position. See if you can determine the cause of his defeat." With that the com unit shut off, indicating that Odin had terminated the connection. It appeared their time of having the advantage was over, he knew it would happen he had just wished it would have taken longer to do so. He hopped he could uncover what it was that the replicators did or used, so counters could be thought up that would give the Asgard the advantage again.


	15. Chapter 10-Escalation

_Chapter Ten, Escalation_

_Conference room, Pentagon, Earth, June 2015_

"Alright here is the latest report we have compiled. Ten days ago Anubis launched an attack against Sokar, he manged to capture close to a dozen border worlds in the first two days. Another seven worlds have fallen to Anubis in the intervening time. The reduction in pace has mostly been alerted and reinforced garrisons. Anubis managed to punch a hole through the border worlds and is now in a position to strike at several of Sokar's core worlds. Sokar's current home world however is still beyond the reach of anything other than raids. At the moment the team on P3X-666 is in no immediate danger however we've deployed two combat teams there should it come under attack. Another research team has also been dispatched to aid with documenting the ancient ruins."

"Will that be enough in case their attacked? The world is supposedly unknown to the Goa'uld, but the same was said about P4T-3G6. Anubis found that world didn't he."

"We have the Kanata on route with some heavy excavation equipment. They should be able to cover any retreat the ground forces may need. We have the Prometheus and Bodskey doing runs between Earth and Harvest right now, but they can be called up any time. The Wu-Zetian and Yukikaze are undergoing space trials right now, if we absolutely need to they can head out as well."

"What about the Ark-Royal and the Marder?"

"They're still going through the final phases of construction, they should be ready for launch within the next two weeks. The Daedalus is still a few months from completion. Concentrating our current ships is probably a good idea, but the slipways at harvest will be able to provide us with ample space to construct ships. As such completing them is a priority, and to do that we need the Prometheus and Bodskey doing supply runs. With any luck P3X will simply be ignored."

"With any luck, which I doubt we will get."

"We've prepared as best we can, there is just no way we can hope to hold if one of them comes after us at P3X. What we really need is more time to build up our forces."

"Of course. On that note, I remember seeing a note somewhere about the combat data from the 3G-ISP units. Also something about a scuffle occurring at the academy involving all three of them."

"We have received the data, it's all thanks to that 'scuffle' that we have combat data for all three units. We have begun building several 3G-IS units based upon the 'Blitz', 'Aile' and 'Buster' designs. We plan to replace several of our older models with the newer ones once they are completed."

"Won't that reset the IS core to its default state?"

"Unfortunately yes it will, the units in question however are severely outdated and in desperate need of replacing. We will be preserving as much of the pilots data on the cores as possible. We were hoping that Tabanae would be willing to lend her services, but that does not appear to be possible."

"She has been quite adamant in her refusal to work with us."

"An unfortunate occurrence, but one we have to work with none the less. On a more positive note we only have to replace a handful of units, and units from other nations of Howe-World command have finished their training and upgrading, and are ready to deploy. This will allow us to fill the holes in our teams while we do some replacing. The only issue is we'll be removing several of our experienced pilots from the front lines, with any luck we'll have enough time to have them rotated back in."

"Time, it seems to be our greatest problem."

"That it is."

_SGC_

"I told you Jack for the last time, I'm not going." Jack had been pestering him about going on their vacation, he just wanted to get back to his work. They were finally making some progress around the Atlantis legend, he was still convinced it was all a coincidence but it was the only lead they had.

"Come on, what could go wrong?"

"The last time I went anywhere with you I got stuck in the middle of a nuclear war. I don't intend to repeat that experience."

"Oh come on, that's unlikely to happen in Japan, Besides Cassie will want to see you." Jack was trying to appeal to his affection for the girl they had rescued all those years ago, the worst part was it was partly working. "Besides, weren't you looking forwards to this when we planned it a few months ago. We even managed to get Janet to come along, that took some doing. And now you just want to drop it, it's the first time you've had days off in years, and you just want to throw it away."

"Jack I have work I have to get done."

"You mean that Atlantis stuff, can't you just take it with you?"

"That's a lot of material to bring, and most of it's on SGC tablets, which I can't exactly bring everywhere. They're part alien technology, and last time I checked we weren't supposed to show that stuff in public."

"You know Carter built Cassie a laptop, so as long as it doesn't look out of place it should be fine, beside the ban is only for stuff that is obviously not from earth."

"Fine I'll consider going, its evident you want me to go along. Who else is going."

"Well there's me, Carter, Janet, Teal'c, and mini me."

"Mini you's going?"

"Yeah, turns out he has some of the highest marks for his grade in the country."

"I wonder why, maybe he already graduated high school once. That would really help his grades, it also means you had to graduate high school, no matter how many times you act like you don't."

"I'm wounded that you would accuse me of that. Though that did get me thinking that all the smart people were or are actually people the Asgard or someone made young again."

Daniel had to stop in his tracks. "That makes an absurd amount of sense."

"Scary isn't it."

"As Teal'c would say."

Together they coursed, "Indeed." The pair let out a light chuckle at the shared joke.

_IS Academy_

Cassandra Quickly made her way to the cafeteria, hoping to make it there and get herself a lunch before Cecilia or Nizru could make one for her. While their lunches were edible, they were even good sometimes, she didn't want to encourage them in their competition to gain her attention. It had yet to get to the point where it was annoying her, but it was getting close, with the two of them trying to one up the other.

She made it to the cafeteria, breakfast would have to wait until she was done her lunch, only to run into a crowd of other students clustered around the center of the cafeteria, made it easier for her so she didn't complain. That was until she saw who the crowd was around, it turned out to be a wall of students centred around Sasha and some short blonde-haired girl, who were in the middle of a very animated conversation. She could feel the crowds glares boring into Sasha, who seemed completely unaware of it. This was an amusing start to the morning.

She managed to get to the other side of the wall of students and made a beeline to Sasha, as she approached she managed to get some snippets of the conversation. "Ces't un place tres proche a la lac, mes amis on souvant aller nager la." Unfortunately she couldn't make out any of it, Sasha was making descriptive gestures with her arms, they probably meant something in context of her conversation.

"Ou est-ce-que c'est?"

"Ca cai un secret d'aile."

"I'll n'y pas de logique ce ca." Cassandra couldn't make out a thing that was being said.

"Ahem." Both heads turned to look at her.

Only to have Sasha turn back. "Et ca c'est Cassandra, elle a une probleme avec aller devant de penser." She felt her fists clench, it was extremely aggravating when people talked about her behind her back, or in front of her in a language she didn't understand.

"Hey, what are you saying about me?"

"Oh, bonjour Cassandra." She could feel her nails biting into her palms and her face getting red with rage. "Quest-ce-que c'est la probleme?"

"I can't understand you. And I know you can understand me."

"Je te comprend Cassandra, tu ne dois pas parle forte. Je juste se trouve ca tres amusant." Sasha's table companion was doing their best not to burst out laughing, while she did her best to not hit Sasha with the nearest blunt object.

Turning to the other person, "can you please translate."

"I take it you can't understand."

"You may as well be speaking gibberish."

"Figures, not many people speak my first tongue. It was actually kind of nice to find someone who could. Charles Dunois, and you are." They held out their hand, wait wasn't Charles a boys name, and where had she heard the name Dunois before.

She took their hand, "Casandra Fraiser, now where have I heard the name Dunois before."

"My father's the head of the Dunois Industry in France." Carter had mentioned them before, something about them being one the suppliers of second gen IS units for the SGC. "I also happen to be the second male able to pilot an IS."

"Really." That seemed awfully convenient. "Prove it."

"Prove what."

"That you're a guy."

Sasha chose that moment to but in. "That's kinda mean Cassandra, why would you doubt what he says."

"Because I don't take everything at face value."

"I can prove it to you if you really want, or are you desperate to see one." She felt her face go red at the comment.

Sasha looked up at her completely confused or oblivious. "Whats wrong Cassandra?"

"N-nothing." She stammered out, dammit what was wrong with her.

Ichika entering the cafeteria saved from any further embarrassment. "Hey Charles, so this is where you were. You weren't there when I woke up so I got a bit worried."

"Sorry, I tried to get your attention but you wouldn't wake up." The uproar around the room nearly deafened her as all the gathered students started talking simultaneously, and being female they also talked very fast. She didn't think some of the actions they were speculating on were even possible, but they did push her thoughts in a direction she was not comfortable with. Now she was grateful for her blush as it prevented her from blushing further.

It was then that Ichika noticed her. "Oh, you're here. We just seem to keep on running into each other in the most unexpected places, times and situations."

"Yeah, we seem to." Her blush faded, they really did seem to meet under weird circumstances.

"You two know each other." Charles asked.

"Yeah she was the girl I was telling you about last night." She was fairly certain that the conversations surrounding them started speculating on the relationship between her and Ichika, or it was just her paranoia kicking in. She was also sure of the increase in the number of glares boring into her back.

"The one who doubted you were a guy."

"Yep." She suddenly had a wish to go hide somewhere, preferably out of sight.

"Hey Cassandra why do you doubt that we're boys?"

"Because except for you two no other boys can use an IS unit, and in my experience nothing is to be taken at face value."

"I suppose." Ichika didn't seem convinced, "by the way Charles when did you find out her name?"

"Oh, the Sasha introduced her, where is Sasha?" Cassandra turned to where Sasha had been only to find that the girl had disappeared, when did Sasha leave? Which remind her that she had things to do as well.

Excusing herself from the pair of boys she made her way to the counter to make herself breakfast and lunch. All the while she could feel two very strong glares boring into her.

She managed to complete her lunch in record time and was starting on her breakfast when she felt someone behind her. Turning around she came face to face with both Cecilia and Nizru, neither of whom looked happy with her. "And what can I do for you two."

"Well I could ask what you where doing but it was fairly easy to see. Why were you hanging around with two men?" Cecilia made it sound as though it was a despicable act.

"Who I hang around with is none of your concern. What does it even matter to you anyways." Cecilia's face gained a tint or two of red.

"Do you even pay attention to things around you, how can you be so thoughtless to those around you."

"You're trying to change the subject. And what makes you think I'm insensitive to those around me, would you mind explaining that." If she was sure of how Cecilia would react, this conversation would soon be over.

"You are so... You're so oblivious to others feelings. You Know What, I'M Not Bothering With You Anymore." Cecilia was on the verge of screeching as she walked away. Cassandra just let a smile creep onto her face. Trick one-oh-one when dealing with an over obsessed friend, don't back down, and don't let them get the better of you.

"What just happened?" And then there was Nizru who didn't understand English, yet. A good thing too as it let her deal with Cecilia first. Honestly the two of them were becoming a little too aggressive for her liking. If this kept up she would have to think of someway of permanently discouraging them. "Why did Cecilia go of, did she say where she was going."

"She went off to do something on her own." Technically true.

"She seemed a little upset."

"She's always upset. Anyways, what did you want?"

"Ohh, Ahh. Nothing." Nizru then did her best do back out without making it look like she had something to do. Cassandra let out a sigh, how did she end up with the two clingiest people in the whole school as her obsessive friends.

_Later, Teacher's office_

"Charles Dunois, I have, what you could call an extra credit assignment for you. Chifuyu looked across the table at the second 'male' to be able to pilot an IS unit. It had taken her all of one look to figure out the 'he' was actually a she, now it was just a matter of discerning the motives behind her coming here. She was fairly certain it involved Ichika in some manner. "From what I am given to understand is that you are the son of the Dunois company's chairman, is this correct."

"Yes." That much was true in a sense, the chairman of the Dunois company was their father. And she didn't want to tip her hand before she had a better idea of what was going on behind the scenes.

"Alright then. How familiar are you with various IS unit designs, and can you look at one and determine general characteristics about it."

"Maybe, it would be better to see them in action, as the design could have several features that would not be evident from an outside inspection."

"Good, we will be preforming outdoor exercises with IS units together with the other classes. I want you to give me your impressions on the units used by the American, Russian and Canadian representative candidates."

"Canada has an IS program?"

"They have a representative at least."

"I see. It just surprised me that's all."

"You weren't the only one surprised. After the exercises when you have a chance, right down any other thoughts that may have occurred to you after the fact."

"Yes. Ahhh, when do want this handed in?"

"Whenever it's done. It's an extra credit assignment, so you have the option of turning it down without being punished in any way."

"Don't worry I'll do it." That was the response she had been expecting, and all it required was the correct thing to grab their attention. A fresh perspective would definitely help with unravelling the mystery behind those units, as well as gain insight into their design. After all, they may end on the opposites sides of a battle sometime.

_Later, Field Three_

Chifuyu watched as the students from classes 1-A and 1-D lined up in neat rows, at the moment they were outside of the field itself. The personal IS holders coming to the front of the group, as per her instructions, six of them in all. They were all supposed to be standing, which they all where except for one silver haired girl who was somehow still asleep at this hour of the day. Instead they were propped up between two of their classmates, it was amazing the kind of idiots who still managed to get in despite all of the tests required to get admission.

The students finished lining up with the sole exception, well may as well get started. "Can I get Ludmilia Chekov up here." A long brown-haired girl with eastern European features stepped forwards, Chifuyu quickly spotted the IS's storage form as a pair of bracelets around the girls arms. "Alright deploy." She really hopped Maya was up for this. "You will be participating in a mock battle, eventually all of you will have a chance at doing a mock battle. Ms. Chekov, you're up first."

"And whom am I facing?" The IS deployed, up close it was massive. While most modern IS units sacrificed armour for speed, relying on their shields to take most of the damage, the IS Ludmilia was using looked like it would take several hits before it went down. After the shields were gone. The armour also gave it an intimidating look, she would not want to fight it hand to hand in another IS. Then there were the wing gun mounts which almost doubled the overall height of the IS, not to mention the shoulder mounted weapons as well. It only real disadvantage seemed to be quick and precise rotating, if some one got in close they could use that to their advantage.

"An instructor, who should be arriving any minute now." Where are you Maya. The first sign a trouble was the wailing, this was not going to end well. The mass of green IS hurtled downwards towards them, most of the students scattered. The representative she had called forwards, simply moved forwards a step and caught the falling IS unit in both of its arms. She really had to reevaluate what those IS's were made of, Maya had been going pretty fast and IS units in general were fairly heavy. The force required to stop Maya in her fall should have torn the arms off, no matter.

"So who am I fighting?"

"The person you just caught." She really hopped Maya was up for this, at least she would have the advantage of knowing a bit about her opponent. "Now, why don't both of you deploy to the arena." The other students managed to line back up as the two IS units deployed to the arena. Once they were in position, "Begin."

She wasn't sure what she was expecting when the match started, but it certainly had not been what happened. She was expecting Ludmilia to launch a barrage of fire at Maya, or charge straight in to prevent Maya from sniping. Instead she chose to drop down, leaving the high ground to Maya, she was completely baffled by the manoeuvre as she could not see any sense to it.

Ludmilia's plan immediately became clear when she hit the ground, and started moving around on without lifting the IS's feet. They attached wheels to the bottom of the feet? It makes sense if they want it to be able to move around with ease, but it can already hover. Maybe something to do with the added weight of the armour? While moving around on the floor of the arena, Ludmilia began firing using the wing mounted guns. She saw it now, the ground provided a better firing platform then the air, allowing a greater degree of accuracy in their weapons, it was actually quite simple after she thought about it.

Maya was no slouch either, the golden field surrounding Ludmilia's IS was clearly visible as it repelled the hits Maya was delivering. But even with all of her skill, Maya was gradually loosing, the few hits Ludmilia did land had taken away a fair amount of shield energy. And even though Maya was landing more hits, the second shield was absorbing them preventing Maya from draining her opponents shield energy. So while Maya was landing more hits, Ludmilia was actually doing damage, it looked like Maya would end up losing if this kept up.

She took a quick peek at the shield readouts for both units, while she was looking Ludmilia shields dropped slightly. Quickly looking back up she quickly confirmed that the outer shield was still up, given that it was still blocking Maya's attacks. This was an interesting development, one she would have to look into later.

But first she wanted to see what another IS user thought, one who had some experience in the development process of an IS unit. "Charles, why don't you tell us about the IS unit Ludmilia is using." More shots flew back and forth between the two units.

"Yes, Ma'am. From its general configuration, it is most likely an artillery unit relying on heavy firepower to bring down its opponents. While most artillery units would have to rely on additional units for close in support, the addition of the outer shield means that it can act alone without fear of being immediately overwhelmed. The primary weapons are kinetic based weapons, most likely railguns though they have a rate of fire significantly higher than those used by other countries. More in line with a fully automatic weapon rather than the single shot cannons, this may be due to a smaller projectile." More or less what she and Tabanae has come up, but it was good to have someone else come to the same conclusions without knowing what said conclusions are.

"Good, now what can you tell me about the unit Ms. Yamada is using." Ludmilia had moved to the far side of the arena and was firing up at Maya who was over to the left near the outer edge of the arena.

"It's a Rapheal Revive made by the Dunois Company. While classified as a second generation unit, it's specs allow it to compete against early third generation units. It is favoured by several militaries in the world for the degree of customization available on each unit without doing any major redesigns. While it lacks any notable strengths other than it's degree of customization, it also lacks any significant drawbacks making it a good all around unit. There is also the fact that the unit can perform multiple roles on the battlefield with little more than a change in the types of weapons being used." Maya switched from an assault rifle to a sniper rifle as she but some distance between the two of them, Ludmilia responded by rocketing upwards intent on keeping the distance within her ideal range. Her accuracy however suffered as more shots started going wide.

"Then why don't you compare the two of them, who do you think will win this match?"

"Ms. Yamada has experience and versatility on her side while Ludmilia has sheer durability and power. In the end it comes down to Ms. Yamada's experience against the amount of hits Ludmilia can take. Having an excess of reserve shield energy allows Ludmilia to be able to afford to make mistakes, while Ms. Yamada has to be careful about taking to many hits. Then there is the outer shield, which absorbs almost all of the hits directed at Ludmilia, allowing her to make up her deficient in skill and experience with being able to absorb hits very well. This is something that Ms. Yamada's versatility can't overcome. The advantage rests with Ludmilia, as long as she can keep her opponent within her ideal firing distance." The fight was winding down now, even thought her shots were getting through the outer shield, the amount of hits she had taken earlier meant she couldn't press the attack hard enough to win.

Ludmilia seemed well aware of this and was pressing Maya hard, sacrificing some shield energy in favour of keeping Maya pinned. While fewer of her shots were hitting, they were still enough to slowly drain Maya's shields. The end of the fight was rather anticlimactic, as Maya simply ran out of energy. "Alright both of you return now." The two of them began to return to where she and the students where. Only for Maya's right-wing to give out sending her straight to the ground in an out of control spiral as the left-wing failed to compensate.

Ludmilia who was flying below Maya managed to catch her, and towed her back to the rest of them. "That's twice today I caught you, this better not become a habit, because next time I'm just going to let you hit the ground." Ludmilia unceremoniously dumped Maya on the ground, this caused Maya to let out a yelp of surprise upon hitting the ground. Ludmilia then turned to her, "Is she really a teacher?"

"Yes she is, despite how she acts she is a teacher." Sometimes even she had her doubts about Maya's ability as a teacher. But Maya somehow managed to succeed despite all of her shortcomings.

"Sometimes I wonder what exactly the requirements for being a teacher are if she managed to get the job here."

"A good reference." Maya used to be a representative candidate, it was sort of the same with how she managed to get a job teaching here. There were some perks to being legally married to Tabanae, being able to cut through any red tape in the world of IS being one of them. One drunken night and she had what had to be the biggest get what you want card in the IS world.

_Dig Site, Ancient Ruins, P3X-666_

Dr. Jay Felger looked over the latest find that the newly arrived excavators had dug up, at first glance it looked like little more than a wall with more ancient writing on it. Jay however had taken a closer look and found what appeared to be gate addresses on it. If he trusted his admittedly bad ancient, but hey what looked like a list of six symbol words might be worth looking into. Taking out his camera he snapped of several shots of the wall, focusing in on where he thought the gate addresses were.

"Hey, Felger what'ca doing over there?" By the tone it was most likely one of the newly arrived soldiers, who arrived alongside the ship currently in orbit.

"Just documenting some of the ruins here." He replied, "looks like there might be some gate addresses here." Why was he here his speciality was ancient technology, not ancient writing, he was going to find whoever had volunteered him for this and, uhhh, do something to them. He would have to figure out something before that.

"Alright, just remember to report in, this is the fifth time you haven't."

"Yeah yeah. I'll remember, now let me get back to work." The soldier shook his head before heading off, while he got back to studying the ruins. He was looking for anything he found that looked familiar to what little of the ancient language he did know. He was so preoccupied that he missed the next check in an hour later. The soldier who had come to check up on him ended up being assigned to watch over him, the Colonel was not happy.

_Base Camp_

Colonel Louis Ferretti looked over the latest update as to the state of affairs around the planet, in particular what related to the base camp which he now commanded and the nearby ruins that the scientists were busy going over. He wished the scientists would stop forgetting to check in, it made his life harder as he had to assign soldiers to keep an eye on them. Which meant he had to take soldiers away from other duties, it hadn't become a problem, yet. But if this kept up he would need more soldiers.

Thankfully Captain McNeil had shown up in the Kanata along with some heavy equipment that had been difficult or impossible to bring by gate. The heavy weapon turrets in particular had been most welcome, while the scientists had appreciated the heavy excavation equipment. With any luck all of it would be for nothing and they had prepared for an attack that never showed up. The fresh coffee and tea McNeil had delivered had raised the spirits of everyone in the camp, making it somewhat easier to get things done. A cup of which he was just sipping on now.

The defences around the gate had been completed as best they could, though the majority of their firepower still rested with their IS units. Though he wished he could do something about that, there simply wasn't any ground unit that could match the IS's mix of firepower, durability and manoeuvrability on the battlefield. Air support was available in the form of the Kanata's F-302 squadron, though this would be unavailable if enemy space power showed up.

At the moment their best defence was not getting attacked at all, as the nearby Goa'uld powers could simply drown them in numbers if they felt like it. While any force attacking through the gate would be in trouble simply by him being able to create a killing field, if they decided to come by ship there would be little he could do.

A private chose that moment to run into the tent that he was using as a command post, thunder erupted in the distance. "Sir, Kull just arrived through the gate." Well that explained the thunder.

"Scramble the defence forces, I'll get a hold of the Kanata." Well looks like the defences he set up would be tested anyways, now to get air support from the Kanata.

Major Alicia Doucette knocked the nearest Kull over onto it's back, it was one of the 'light' Kull rather than one of the 'heavy' ones, those were hard to deal with. Unlike the 'light' one she had knocked over, she used her left leg to pin it to the ground while she brought her right foot down on its head. She was rewarded with a crunch as her massive bulk crushed the helmet and skull underneath.

Incoming shots from the remaining several dozen Kull forced her to find some cover, which was relatively easy thanks to the preparations made ahead of time. After the fire slackened off, most likely they had found another target, she got a good look at the enemy forces. More Kull were flowing in from the gate to loin the several dozen already here. They needed help fast or they would be overrun.

Luckily help was on the way, the first sign of the fighters approach were the detonations in the middle of the mass of Kull, the missiles sent several Kull flying into the air, along with parts to several others. Dull thumps announced where several of the flying Kull had landed, the nearest over to her left and front a few meters. Moving quickly she crushed its helmet before it could get back up.

The explosions had thrown the Kull into disarray allowing IS units to pick of several ones that had been isolated by the blasts. Heavy weapons fire from the non IS troops poured into the Kull formation, though it inflicted little actual damage it served to divide their attention and draw of some of their fire. The same was true for the weapons deployed by the IS units, she watched as someone emptied an entire charge of plasma bolts into one of the 'heavy' Kull for no effect. Of course they had others measures available to them.

She managed to catch one of the 'heavy' Kull just far enough away from the main group so that it couldn't be supported. She was using the wheel balls in her feet to glide along the ground at a fair speed, the impact with the Kull knocked it over and back a few meters while her shield dropped to near half capacity. A heavy railgun round from her wing mounts knocked it over while she moved in for the kill. She was forced to back of as several dozen plasma bolts flew at her from some of the nearby Kull.

A second fighter pass sent more Kull and pieces of Kull flying into the air. So far they had managed to keep the Kull contained within the kill-zone, but even now they were beginning to push out of it. Luckily more of them had stopped coming through the gate, though that still left several dozen Kull to deal with. She took cover behind some rubble before taking out several missiles and firing them into the mass of Kull warriors. She ducked back behind cover before the missiles hit, over the radio she could hear her fellow IS pilots and the troops calling in where the Kull were. More importantly they were identifying isolated Kull who had separated from the main group.

Launching herself over the rubble she used her wings to accelerate herself towards one of the lone Kull. She managed to catch its head in her right hand, while tearing it clean from the body due to the speed she was going at the moment of impact. She dropped the head and ducked back behind cover as several plasma bolts flew by her. A series of explosions announced the fighters making another pass over the Kull. Things were looking up, now as long as no Ha'taks showed up this would be easy.

Movement beside her drew her attention to a group of Kull charging on of the heavy weapon nests, the troopers were firing back but to little effect. She charged at them from the side, the crew seeing her held their fire when she got inside the group of Kull. As they changed targets she picked and threw the nearest Kull back towards the gate. The next Kull she got in a headlock before using it as a shield against the other Kull.

She managed to block several cannon shots with her improvised shield before hurling it at the nearest 'heavy' in the group. Using her temporary distraction she managed to get up to the Kull and snap its neck, while the remaining Kull fired at her, but a fair number of hits went into their allies. "Major clear the area." She immediately shot skyward before arcing back towards friendly territory, an explosion blossomed where she had just been. The Kull she had been fighting were knocked back, one of them was even ripped apart.

She descended on the stunned warriors, dropping at high-speed she managed to crush one as it tried to get back to its feet. She managed to get another one before she had to back up to avoid being hit by a barrage of plasma bolts. The Kull she had been engaging where in the process of a fighting retreat as they continued to fire while moving back. And it wasn't just that one group, all the remaining Kull were falling back towards the gate, the few dozen that remained.

She quickly called up the statuses of the IS units who were in the battle, while they hadn't taken any losses, several of them were down for repairs, a few others were hanging back while their shields recharged. Out of the two dozen IS units available, only ten were in any condition for fighting Kull. "All remaining units form up on me." The remaining IS units began to group up near her. "We're going to head them off before they can get through the gate. Shoot any remaining missiles into them before we hit, also don't do anything stupid."

Opening a line to the fighters, "Kat squadron, can you do another pass." She was willing to take any advantage she could get, no matter how much it would actually do.

"This is Captain Beurling, we have enough ammunition for one more pass."

"That will be enough Captain." Or at least she hoped it would be enough.

"Commencing attack run."

Switching back to the other channel, "once the fighters have made their pass, we're going in. Get in between them and the gate and take down as many as you can. If your shields go critical fall back." They all acknowledged that the orders were received.

The fighters started their attack run. Coming from high and to her left they went into a near vertical dive over top of the Kull. Missiles dropped from beneath their wings before activating their motors and rocketing downwards. After loosing their missiles the fighters broke off their dive and climbed upwards.

She was already heading straight down, the rest of the IS units following her. She aimed herself at the Kull closest to the gate. The rest of the group began picking out individual targets, their selection appearing on her HUD. She picked out a 'heavy' that was near the front of the pack.

The missile detonations threw the Kull retreat into disarray, the majority of them were sent stumbling, flying or were knocked over. It even looked like several of them were torn apart. The other IS units followed her lead and hurtled towards the Kull, while she would have enjoyed hitting the Kull at supersonic speed the resulting impact would severely damage her IS. Instead she and the other IS pilots settled for subsonic collisions. The disoriented Kull only managed to get off a handful of shots before the IS units collided with them

She managed to cave in the chest of the Kull she had targeted, the other IS units managed to crush their targets with their bulk. While back on earth their IS's were mocked for being bulky and heavy, here on the battlefield the extra weight and bulk was worth it. Especially against Kull. She managed to crush the helmets of another two Kull with the help of another IS before an alarm on her HUD indicated her shield was tacking hits. Not even bothering trying to find where the fire was coming from she ducked out of the way and did her best to find cover.

Unfortunately there was none nearby, so instead she went airborne to get a better idea of where she was being shot at from. It nearly cost her her life. The instant she went airborne every Kull nearby fired at her, several dozen plasma bolts slammed into her already weakened shields causing them to collapse. Her armour managed to absorb a few of them, but it was a losing battle. She was saved by one or her wings taking a hit causing her to crash to the ground, thereby removing her from the line of fire for most of the Kull.

The other IS had not been idle, taking advantage of the distraction they charged the Kull.

_Later_

"Twelve dead, another thirty wounded," the soldier looked at the next page of the report, "one hell of a repair bill. All but two of the IS units require repairs along with the damaged weapon emplacements. The F-302s came away without a scratch, so it's not all bad."

"Tell that to the politicians who will see nothing but the casualty and repair bills. Then tell me it's not all bad."

"Well there is that. Anyways all but six of the IS units will need to be sent back to earth for repairs, while another four we will be able to conduct field repairs on."

"And Major Doucette."

"No life threatening injuries, though she is still unconscious. She's been transferred up to the Kanata with the rest of the injured personnel. We are still in the process of counting the enemy dead, currently we're up to ninety-four Kull. We're readying what we've counted for transport back to earth."

"Good, one more thing before you go. Gather all the lead scientists working on the ruins here. We need to start packing up and leaving, Anubis will be back and it won't be with a handful of Kull next time."

"What makes you think that, this planet isn't even known to the Goa'uld."

"I don't know, but what I do know is that Anubis will come back in force and it's best if we're long gone by the time that happens."

"Yes sir. I'll get right on it." He hoped they managed to get out of here before Anubis showed up. While he would be the first to admit abandoning ancient ruins was a bad idea, he also knew that standing in the way of an invasion force would be suicidal. Besides he had the beginnings of a plan in place for denying the ruins to Anubis, now he just needed the time to finish and implement it.

He opened up a line to Captain McNeil, he was going to need some heavy explosives to carry out his plan. And if they timed it just right they may even knock out a bunch of Anubisis warriors. "Colonel, what do you need from me now, I hope its heavy lift capacity so we can get our asses out of here. I just received word that the Wu-Zetian and the Yukikaze are on their way they're about twenty-eight hours out, with the Prometheus and the Bodsky about another ten hours behind them."

"That's good to hear. Now I have a little plan I've been thinking on..."


	16. Chapter 11-Joining the Fight

_Chapter Eleven,Joining the Fight  
_

_Anubis's base, Tartarus, June 2015_

Anubis had to keep reminding himself that he was currently surrounded by valuable equipment that he could not simply take his anger out on. But darn the Tau'ri and their interference with his plans. He had drawn up a near flawless plan, hit Sokar from the front hard enough that he would shift the majority of his forces to face it then use one of the planets that the Goa'uld as a whole were unaware of to launch an invasion against Sokars current capital.

It had all been going well up until the point at which his scout force had exited the Chappa'ai and were ambushed by a force of Tau'ri. How had they even know where that world was, and how did they know he was planning on using it as a staging ground. He could easily rule out a spy because outside of himself and the forces he had sent no one else knew he was sending any forces to that planet, and he had yet to divulge his entire plan to anyone. So how had they known to be there?

At this point there was little he could do about that, but he was resolved to uncover how they had managed to uncover his plan. It had been fairly easy to come up with a plan to deal with this development. He would need orbital superiority, and for that he would need Ha'taks, there had been Tau'ri gliders present so Al'Kesh would not do. As they would be vulnerable to the gliders. He also did not want to risk any significant number of Ha'taks in case the Tau'ru decided to inform Sokar or another system lord of his plan and he sent his forces in another ambush.

Three Ha'taks would be sufficient to eliminate any ground forces and gliders without putting themselves at risk. And it was a loss he could afford if it was indeed sending them into a trap. Now the only issue was how did the Tua'ri uncover his plans, several ideas flowed through his mind but every one of them was absurd or was easily disproven. He had a plan that would hopefully allow him to uncover where the Tau'ri had gotten their information, if it was indeed a trap he could hopefully at least find where the information had come from.

He sent out his orders, each recipient got a slightly different version of the orders with any luck it he could narrow down the location of where the information had gotten out.

The main front of the fight had stalled right where he thought it would, give or take a planet or two. From what he had been able to gleam, over seventy percent of Sokar's forces were concentrated along the front he had created in Sokar's domain. This left only a small force guarding his capital world, the remaining forces were most likely scattered along his border to make any raids painful and to provide warning should someone try to take advantage of the fact that most of his forces were tied up.

Anubis however did not suffer from that problem, seeing as most of his territory was on worlds unknown to the Goa'uld at large. And most of the worlds that were known to the Goa'uld were of little use, except for Erush, he really wish he hadn't needed to abandon the world after the loss of a significant portion of his fleet. But most of his worlds were currently outside the reach of the Goa'uld system lords, but evidently they might be at risk from the Tau'ri. But the Tau'ri didn't have any ships of their own, or at least any that posed a threat to a Ha'tak, and the Chappa'ais on his worlds were well guarded so no force could use them to sneak onto his worlds.

There was still the possibility of the Tau'ri somehow informing the system lords about the worlds they were unaware of. There was nothing he could do about that, but he didn't think they would do that, after all those worlds were safe heavens for them as well. In the end it was just another reason to avoid pushing the Tau'ri to far just yet as they may reveal the existence and coordinates of those worlds to the rest of the system lords just to spite him. He would need to thin out the system lords first, just more so then he had originally planned.

There was some good news though, thanks to the Kull ground opposition was easily crushed with minimal losses. And his upgraded Ha'taks were making up in weapon power and shield strength for their lack in numbers. At this point all it meant was that he could hold on to what he had captured, that would be the case until he took Sokar's capital, and hopefully Sokar's surviving industry and fleet as well.

_IS Academy, Japan, Earth_

Jack O'Neill picked up the three sets of room keys and handed them out to the other people in the group according to their prearranged sleeping arrangements. He would be sharing a room with his younger self, Daniel and Teal'c were in another with Janet and Sam in the third room. They had just finished a half hour long wait to get the room keys as the lobby of the building had been filled with people from all over the world. Sam had told him that the most of the people here had made a name for themselves in the IS industry and related businesses.

Most of them. Some like himself were friends, family and business associates who had come along with the main crowd. Sam had already started pointing out important people, who he really didn't care about, but listened anyways, he she suspected she knew he didn't care but couldn't prove it. He made out the head of the Dunois Company was here along with her self-proclaimed rival Rodney McKay, some Russian IS designer who she had worked alongside. Sam kept on naming people as he slowly zoned out, while doing his best to make it seem like he was paying attention.

Eventually they made it out of the lobby and into the elevators that would take them up. He was a little sorry that he couldn't share a room with Sam, but it wasn't like that was the only place they could have a rendezvous, and they could always swap rooms if they wanted. They had manged to get adjacent rooms, which Sam had pointed out they probably wouldn't have gotten if she hadn't have booked early.

After unpacking in their rooms the group of them made their way back down to the lobby. While they were limited as to where they could go on the campus, there were several areas that were open, such as the 'shopping mall', and a study hall. More business hall if you asked him. Cassie said she would be meeting them at the 'shopping mall' so that's where they headed first.

The 'shopping mall' would not have qualified as such had it been in the U.S., it was more a shopping center than anything else, more of a place to hang out and grab something to eat than actually buy stuff. He had a feeling that on most days it was filled with students during their time off, today however it was filled with mainly older people with a scattering of white uniforms. They managed to find a table for themselves in the food court area of the center, and sat themselves down. Teal'c and Daniel went off to find food while Janet pulled out her phone and called Cassie, Sam leaned over to help her.

For now he was just content to wait for everyone else to do their thing. "So, Jack. I heard you guys got caught up in something big again. Why do I miss all the fun." He turned to his younger self who was moaning on about how he missed the adventures he used to go on. Jack would have been thankful to get away from it all for a few years.

"Well for one it wasn't fun." He would have to avoid anything he couldn't easily explain away or would sound suspicious. "And two I can't really talk about, or want to. It was one huge clusterfuck, after another, then things went south."

"Hardly seems surprising given your luck. I'm just surprised no one else showed up for that party to make things even more interesting." Jack shot him a look, "oh come on we both know the universe just loves to find new and amusing ways to drive us insane." Jack could not find any way to retort that.

"And next time you try to do that I'm finding some bigger needles, maybe then people will stop finding ways to get themselves hurt." Both O'Neills turned to Janet, who had finished with her phone.

"Won't that simply discourage them from reporting injuries." He had been on the receiving end of her wrath one too many times, to take it as a joke.

"We do a medical exam after everything, we will find any injuries and deal with them. And if someone tries to hide them they will end up wishing they hadn't." He really wished he could tell when Janet was joking around and not serious.

"Hey guys." The four of them turned to see Cassie in a white uniform running up to them. Janet preemptively got out of her chair. Cassie nearly tackled Janet into the table with a flying leap, but the doctor was stronger than she looked and managed to stay upright. "It's good to see you guys again."

"Baby, you mind letting go you're not as light as you used to be." Cassie quickly disengaged herself from Janet.

"Sorry, I'm just so happy to see you guys." She looked at who was at the table. "I thought Danny and T were coming as well?"

"They're off getting food."

"Ohh." Just then Teal'c and Daniel returned with some food. "And speak of the devil and he shall appear." The two of them dropped what they had gotten on the table as everyone pulled in closer to the table. Teal'c had managed to find turkey somewhere and had acquired a sizable amount of it along with some bread rolls and whole fruits. He had even acquired some blue Jello for which he was eternally grateful. Daniel on the other hand had acquired several dishes, one was some noodle dish, another was what looked like bread balls, while a third appeared to be a stir fry of some sort.

The group of them exchanged small talk as they ate, mainly Cassie telling them about how this had been going at school, while she tried to wiggle details about what they had been up to. She didn't have much luck as they were all aware of the sensitivity of the information she wanted, he suspected she was fully aware of that and was just at the curious teenager stage.

He thought he saw McKay in the food court chatting to some silver-haired student, but they both vanished before he could get a good look. He just chalked it up to his imagination and dug back into his blue jello, as from what he knew of the man it would be very unlikely that he could pick up one of the students here. Besides silver was not a natural hair colour. It was at that point that he noticed that Cassie's face was bright red, "I do not have a girlfriend." She declared quite clearly and rather loudly.

John who was sitting more or less opposite of her gave out a light chuckle. "So you managed to hook up with one of the guys then."

"No, I. Ahhh auurrrggghhh. You're impossible." The rest of them who had been listening to the exchange gave out a light chuckle.

Janet just gave her daughter a pat on the back while doing her best not to burst out laughing. "It's okay sweetie, we're just teasing you." Cassie simply hung her head in defeat.

"I fail to understand how her sexual preferences can be the subject of a joke." Cassie turned even redder at the comment from Teal'c. Daniel nearly coughed what he had eaten back up, while the rest of them save Cassie and Teal'c burst into another round of trying not to laugh to hard. While Teal'c had been getting better over the years there were still some facets of earth civilization he still ended up confused by.

"Some things were not made to be understood Teal'c."

Teal'c merely raised his right eyebrow, "Indeed."

At a nearby table two girls had taken a break from lamenting over the lack of turkey available, to listen in on the conversation. The declaration they both heard was quite definitive, "I do not have a girlfriend."

The blond-haired one turned to her companion, "it appears our efforts have had no results."

"It would appear so." Her brown-haired companion answered. "And it appears another challenger had appeared."

"He will have to be dealt with, and quickly lest he drags her down the wrong path."

"Agreed." With that the two of them delved into their ridiculous plotting.

_Orbit P3X-666_

Captain Douglas McNeil sat in the commanders chair on the bridge aboard the HMCS Kanata, the first and currently only ship of the Canadian space navy and the third ship Prometheus class ship built for earths space navy. He was currently waiting for the Wu-Zetain and the Yukikaze to show up, the to sister ships of his own ship who had just recently been completed. Becoming the four and fifth ships of this class to be built. The Prometheus herself and the Bodsky were supposed to be on their way as well but had further to travel than the other three. Still he figured he could quickly remove one Ha'tak from the field off play with what he had before he would retreat.

The evacuation of the planet had for the most part been completed with anything and anyone that could go back through the gate having already been sent. And the stuff that couldn't be sent was loaded onto his ship. It was a pity that they were going to lose access to the ancient ruins here, but there was no helping it. Anubis had set his sights on this world and earth currently lacked the firepower necessary to keep him off of it. So it was being abandoned, though they would make sure Anubis payed for taking this world. A few surprises awaited his forces when they made it to the ground. And while high command would not be pleased with what was about to happen there would be little they could do about it. After all it was easier to beg forgiveness than ask for permision.

A pair of hyperspace windows opening drew his mind back to the present situation, from the blue-white male-storms emerged the forms of two Prometheus class vessels. The Wu-Zetian and the Yukikaze if he judged correctly. His com officer informed him he had incoming channels from the recently arrived ships. "Put them through." He turned to the video screens reserved for ship to ship video communication. A pair of screens turned on displaying two men with oriental features, most likely the ships commanders, their respective ship names were displayed at the bottom of the screens. "Captains, I'm glad you could make it."

"It would be a great misfortune to lose one of our few ships just because she was unsupported. So we are here today to prevent that." Why couldn't the Chinese just admit they were helping, instead of going on a roundabout route of rhetoric about how it ultimately benefited them. He still had trouble believing that the US had given China a ship of their own, unfortunately the evidence was right in front of him that they had.

"Likewise Captain, it shall be an honour to serve with you." The Japanese on the other hand were quite willing to work with the industrial giants of earth for a common goal. He couldn't even fathom how the JSDF had manged to find enough people with clearance to crew their ship, given their reluctance to use lifetime soldiers. At least they knew how much they were worth when compared to industrial giants like the US, Russia and China. Which put them on par with his own country in terms of available industry.

"Form up for now, the last stage of the evacuation is in progress right now." If everything was on schedule the last bit of stuff that could be sent through the gate was going now. "After that it will just be a matter of getting the security detail out and then we leave."

"Is there anything else you have planned that we should be aware of." He made it sound as though he had a right to know everything, frankly he didn't like the tone. But he had to put up with it for now.

"We have a few surprises waiting for Anubis should he show up. We're hoping to be out of here by then though."

"I see." The line disconnected and the other two ships took up flank positions relative to his own ship.

He was about to check up on the evacuation when an alarm sounded in the ship. "Captain detecting hyperspace windows, thirty-eight degrees to port, elevation forty-five degrees." His sensor officer announced loudly.

"Sound general quarters, bring all ships bring us to face and get me a status update on the evacuation." Well this was it, this would be the first time his ships guns would be fired in anger, he hopped his crew was ready.

"Three contacts, shield bubble size indicates Ha'tak class vessels, visuals confirm. Shield readings match Anubis refit Ha'taks."

"Have the 302 squadrons scramble, has data linking with the Wu-Zetian and Yukikaze been completed."

"Data linking has been complete." His weapons officer confirmed.

"Evacuation is almost complete, the last personnel are gating to earth now." His com officer informed him. That would just leave Ferretti and his what was left of his team down there.

"302s are away, weapons standing by."

"Good, lock on to the closest Ha'tak and prepare to fire." The crew around the CIC went about their duties as they prepared for their first ever combat as members of this ships crew.

"All ships locked on target."

"Launch missiles, have secondary weapons fire in a dispersion, fire half barrage from the main cannons." Across all three ships missiles roared out of their silos, alongside them rail-gun and plasma bolts from the projectors raced down range. While the plasma bolts glowed a light pink, the solid slugs fired by the rail-guns were invisible to the naked eye. The missiles went in parabolic arcs that would intersect with the Ha'taks, while keeping them outside of the line of fire. Several short-lived miniature explosions appeared at the edge of his range of vision, moist likely death gliders being caught by the first salvo, as the Ha'taks themselves were still beyond visual range.

Several seconds later a dozen and a half large pink plasma bolts were sent downrange by the main cannons of the ships. Unfortunately he couldn't see the actual impacts themselves as it was beyond visual range, he did however catch the explosion of a nuclear warhead, roughly where he estimated the Ha'taks to be. While the ship to ship weapons that were being used were fairly low yield they did have several unique features on them. The first being a special head that made it easier for them to punch through a ships shields and the second was a lens that focused the blast forwards.

"Lead contact gone sir, picking up multiple large pieces of debris. Confirming... lead target is down, non salvageable." Pity, but not unexpected, and that also meant Anubis couldn't recover it, he let his view wander over the field off battle for a second. And while he could see next to nothing, he could see several gold-yellow plasma bolts fly towards his ship and the ships to either side of him. They were however beyond the effective range of the Ha'taks to respond, so most of them missed.

"Good," he took a second to look over the display, "target starboard contact, and fire." He'd always wanted to say that. Missiles launched out of their tubes and the secondary weapons re-targeted.

"Captain, Colonel Ferretti reports that the evacuation is complete, he and his team are moving out now." Good, things were actually going as planned for once, it was probably that SG1 wasn't involved that caused it. "Hold on, they just had an incoming wormhole and Kull are coming through." He just had to go and curse it didn't he.

A second explosion occurred of in the distance signaled the destruction of the next Ha'tak. "What's the status of the third Ha'tak."

"Looks like it's pulling back."

"How long untill our main cannons can fire again?"

"Three and a half minutes until we can fire again, fifteen for a full charge."

"I thought we could recharge faster than that?"

"Not both cannons at the same time with the shields and the secondary weapon systems drawing power." Well that was unfortunate, and going on the mission report, better the people who planned the missions were made aware of the in combat limitations of their ships than a poor decision based on poor information. Well at least right now it wasn't a fatal miscommunication.

Though it was falling back the last Ha'tak was still firing plasma bolts in their general direction. "Have the other ships position themselves between us and that third Ha'tak, have medical teams go to standby. Get a lock of Ferretti's team and prepare to beam them onboard when we drop the shields." A series of yes sirs followed his orders. The Katana headed back to the planet while the other two ships positioned themselves between the Ha'tak and the Kanata.

"We got locks on all of Ferrettis team."

"Beam them into one of the spare cargo holds, and have the medical and security teams ready to move in once their onboard." The Kanata came to a stop over top of the general area where Ferretti and his team where.

"We got locks."

"Drop shields and get them onboard." For a brief instant the Kanata was defenseless as her shields dropped so that Ferretti and his team could be beamed aboard. In those brief moments one of the plasma rounds from the Ha'tak slipped past the other two ships and struck home on the Kanata. He felt the impact through his seat as a slight bump. "Report."

"Ferretti's team is aboard. Hit to the starboard flight pod, outer armour is damaged, inner armour sustained minimal damage, with no penetration of inner armour." Well that was a relief at least.

"Signal the Yukikaze and Wu-Zetian to prepare for immediate hyperspace jumps, destination earth. This mission is complete." Down on the planet below a triplet of nuclear explosions appeared where the ruins used to be. "Can someone get me a line to Ferretti."

"On it." He waited the few seconds as someone got Ferretti to one of the intraship communication units. "You're connected." He gave a nod to the officer. Outside the starscape was replaced by the blue and white streaks of subspace.

"Hello Ferretti, so how well did you think you're little plan worked." He wanted to collect a few more things before he compiled his final report on how things turned out.

"It looks like we got a bunch of them, there must have been close to two hundred when you got us out of there. Plus whatever else had come through the gate after we got beamed out. So moderately effective." Eh, could've been worse, they could have decided to not deploy any troops on the gournd.

_Anubis's base, Tartarus_

Anubis could barely fathom what the last surviving Ha'tak he had sent out was reporting. The Tau'ri had space capable warships, something he had not anticipated at all. Evidently it was time to stop anticipating things with the Tau'ri and just accept what ever they had, seeing as it had just been proven to him that he was a poor judge of just what they were capable of. While he had been aware of their gliders, he had been under the impression that those were merely made by looking over Udajeets and upgrading their existing craft. He had not expected them to be able to build full on warships, so quickly at any rate.

And they had demonstrated that they were quite capable, they had destroyed two Ha'taks in less than two minutes. Something that required at least a dozen and a half Ha'tak to do. That was the most unsettling part, it was evident that the Asgard had given them that capability. Which meant that the protected planets treaty was null and void, if he found a way to reveal it to the other system lords without revealing the planets they were unaware of. That was in addition to them believing him in the first place, which was unlikely.

His plans would need to reworked again, to take this into account, before all he believed he would be facing were Asgard warships. Now he had to contend with Tau'ri warships as well. Good news was that they would be relatively inexperienced in how to use them, they had just surprised his forces this time. Next time he would be prepared. He also had combat recordings of their ships in action, he intended to use those to uncover any weaknesses and strengths their ships had.

The biggest advantage they had was the range at which they could reliably hit a Ha'tak, this would favour them if they could choose the range of engagement. It may also mean that they were less capable if the range was shortened, something worth testing out at the very least. Then there was why they hadn't destroyed the third Ha'tak, had it been because it had moved out of range and they elected not to pursue. It seemed to fit as one of their ships had moved back to extract their ground forces, which brought him to another conclusion, they weren't very aggressive with their ships. If he had had a three to one advantage he would have pushed it, even with two to one odds he would have pushed the advantage for all it was worth. They were scared of losing ships he concluded, which meant they most likely didn't have very many of them. He could work with that, as all it meant was that he would have to bring overwhelming numbers against them, and soon before they managed to get more ships.

A plan began forming in the back of his mind of how he would crush the Tau'ri, but first he needed to remove Sokar from play, and given that the Tau'ri had retreated his original plan might still work if he acted fast enough. Despite all the setbacks he had received he may just be able to win this after-all.

_IS Academy, Earth_

Cecilia Alcott floated around arena number six at the IS academy in her Blue Tears, opposite of her was the Chinese representative candidate Lingyin Huang, in her IS the Shenlong. This fight had stated an hour ago when Lingyin had insulted British tea, she would regret the moment she ever decided to insult the tea of Cecilia's homeland. Things had them gotten into a heated argument, with several insults being thrown around until she had called for a duel to settle things once and for all. The stadium itself was almost empty as no one was really interested in this match, she didn't mind as the match would be recorded. Which meant she could hang it over Lingyin head for a while to come.

The buzzer went signalling the start of their match, she immediately brought her rifle out a hit Lingyin dead center of the chest, before the other girl could react. To her credit the other girl avoided the follow-up shots quite well. "Well looks like the dyke can shoot straight after all."

"It's better than ending up with a useless stallion." Using her thermal sensors Cecilia dodged the impact cannon blast shot her way.

"Ohh, if I remember correctly she only thinks of you as a friend." Cecilia launched her bits and started shooting dropping shots on Lingyin from a variety of angles, the other girl managed to avoid most of them.

"Your one to talk, considering he probably thinks the same of you. And at least she isn't useless like he is." Lingyin charged straight at her, while deploying a pair of axes that she combined into one large double-bladed axe, overkill if you asked her. Lingyin charged straight at her making for an easy target, she manged to land a few hits before drawing her own melee weapon. Her short blade clashed with the massive double axe wielded by the other girl. They hung together for several seconds as they tried to overpower the other, they separated when a shot passed through the space they had been in.

Standing near the edge of the arena was a black IS being piloted by a silvered haired girl, who was definitely not Cassandra's roommate. For one she had long hair, and she was wearing an eye-patch over her left eye and her face was all wrong. "Hey just what do you think you're doing Laura." And apparently her name was Laura, definitely not Cassandra's roommate. "This fight had nothing to do with you."

"Oh, I doubt that, you were fighting over that useless stallion you keep pinning over. When will you simply give up on him and accept how useless he is."

"See Lingyin, I'm not the only person who realizes how useless he is." She watched as Lingyin face began to take on a shade of red.

"You are so dead." Lingyin charged straight at her again making it an easy matter to land hits, she deflected the Lingyin's first blow by batting at it with her rifle while she drew her blade again.

"I seem to be doing quite fine, really you're the one in trouble. One would even say..." She was cut off as another shot forced the two of them to separate again.

"Don't ignore me." Laura had a red tint to her face.

She and Lingyin shouted, "SHUT UP."

"Would you please refrain from interfering in this fight any further, it's improper." Really could they finish this fight without any further distractions.

"Why don't you run back inside and find your precious Ms. Orimura, I'm sure she'll give you comfort." Laura face became bright red with rage.

"Do not insult instructor, I'm going to tear your heads off for that." With that Laura charged at the two of them, despite her IS being clearly optimized for long-range combat.

"You really are a fool." Cecilia commented about her opponent as she deployed her bits and readied her special surprise. She was surprised when several red cables launched from Laura's IS and started chasing after her and Lingyin. She quickly decided she didn't want to get caught by those cables and put some distance between herself and the other two combatants. Besides it was the distance that she was best suited for.

Laura saw this and fired her shoulder cannon at her, but to someone who had been on the receiving end of Ludmilia's barrage, the single shot was laughable. She moved slightly to the right so the shell passed her by, this wasn't missed by Laura who continued to become angry at realizing her shot missed. She stuck out her tongue, to get Laura even angrier and it worked, after all angry people were more likely to make mistakes.

Laura was getting ready to charge when something dropped onto her back pinning her down. It took Cecilia a few moments to recognize what had pinned Laura down, when she did she nearly froze, nearly. Ludmilia in her IS had jumped onto Laura's back and was simply using her IS's massive bulk to keep Laura pinned. "FREE FOR ALL." Or Ludmilia in a nutshell. She ducked around a bit to avoid the handful of shots sent her way while redirecting her bits to target Ludmilia, why did people keep interfering in the fight between her and Lingyin.

Near the hole Ludmilia had broken in the wall of the stadium to gain entrance, stood Ichika and Charles. "Ichika, should we go in and help them."

Ichika just shook his head, "if we go in there now it will only get worse, besides they could use the chance to blow of some steam." Ichika seeing that Charles was still worried added, "we'll intervene if one of them looks to be injured. And anyways, you don't interfere in the affairs of tsunderes, that just invites unneeded pain."

Charles looked back out onto the field thoughtfully, Laura had managed to get herself out from underneath Ludmilia and was trying to immobilize the other girl but with little success. Even though she managed to get a cable around Ludmilia's arm, the size and strength of Ludmilia's IS allowed her to pull Laura along rather than being pulled along.

Not for the first time Charles questioned the wisdom of allowing teenagers access to IS units. But having a father who owns one of the biggest IS manufacturers on the planet gave Charles access to the main reason why teenagers were allowed to use IS units, they had the highest IS fusion rates of any age demographic as well as the highest IS fusion scores. Which meant they had the easiest time of making an IS unit move, then there was the consideration that the IS itself was aware and grew along with its pilot. So starting young made some sense.

"Is it really okay to leave them like this, they seem to be out to kill each other?"

"As I said it's fine, and anyways all we would end up doing is making things worse and getting in trouble with the teachers."

_Later, Teachers Office_

Chifuyu looked over the four girls who were standing in front of her desk, all four of them were representative candidates and yet they had manged to create probably the biggest incident so far this year. The good news was that the teachers on station had manged to contain the situation before it got out of hand, leaving the rest of the campus unaware as to exactly what had happened. The bad news was that the rest of the campus knew something was up, including the VIPs from around the world.

Why did it seem that every incident centered around idiot representative candidates, weren't these people supposed to represent their countries as best they can. Instead she was stuck cleaning up their messes, to date only one representative candidate had failed to get involved in an incident, and that was Ichika just persuading them not to get involved. "I believe you all know why you're here," four nods confirmed they were listening, "because of what happened I've had to cancel all IS matches until the tournament. I've also informed those who people who are now missing out on matches as to who was responsible. For the next month the four of you will be assisting the cleaning staff with the public washrooms."

This inflicted moans from all four of them, personally she didn't care as she was fed up with all the stupidity that was going on. This might just convince them to think before they acted, she took a quick glance over them, might convince some of them. With any luck it might also discourage others from the same thing. "But.. But they were the ones who interfered in our match." The blonde haired girl spoke up while pointing her fingers at Laura and Ludmilia.

"Yeah, we were doing nothing wrong until them two showed up." Rin surprised her by agreeing with the blonde girl, considering how they had been at each others throats earlier.

"There were plenty of options available to you when the other two interfered, none of which you took, so no, you will not be let of this time." She watched as the two of them levelled glares at the other two girls. "Nor does it ignore the fact that you really had no reason to be conducting a duel in the first place."

She instantly regretted saying that as the two of them went into a long-winded argument and explanation as to why the duel they were having was important. All she understood was that it involved tea in some form. At least Ichka and Charles had demonstrated some common sense and allowed the teachers to break up the fight rather than interfering themselves. Though from what she heard Charles wanted to join in as well, only to be talked down by Ichika. What was this world coming to when Ichika Orimura was the bastion of common sense, she did not like the image that sprang to mind.


	17. Chapter 12-New IS era

_Chapter Twelve, New IS era  
_

_Teachers Dorm, IS Academy, Earth, June 2015_

Chifuyu Orimura awoke slowly from her sleep, the problems that had popping up as the Individual tournament came closer. Things had started out okay, until the first incident a few days ago with a few representative candidates having what could only be described as an all out brawl a few days ago. Then there had been an incident involving close to half tonne worth of potatoes, she wasn't even sure where they had gotten that many in the first place. Thankfully the head of the Dunois company was willing to let it slide, this time. For the time being the major incidents had been resolved before they could end up on the news, but it was only a matter of time before something happened that they couldn't do damage control on. Then the real problems would start.

She had awakened enough to realize that there was a significant mass on top of her, but given her grogginess she just assumed it was the blanket and that she was still really tired. Not all that unlikely, and it wasn't like she wanted to get up anyways. It was only as she began to take in more details did her exact situation become clearer. For one she was on her back not her side as she usually slept, for another her nightclothes had disappeared. And finally the mass on top of her was snoring softly.

It wasn't like she wanted to get up anyways, and it was in these kinds of rare moments that she actually enjoyed her wife's company. It occurred to her that she enjoyed Tabanae's company when she was simply and not actively doing anything. Probably because when she does do something Chifuyu was the one who had to straighten things out, a cynical part of her mind noted. Even so it was her day off so she may as well enjoy the small pleasures in life, even though they may disappear at the drop of a hat, or maybe it was because of that she enjoyed them when she could. She couldn't decide one way or another.

She turned her head slightly to the side so she could see her clock, it was just after eight, on a Thursday. She returned her head to where it had been before, "Well crap." She threw the blanket and Tabane of to one side of the bed as she exited from the other side. Moving over to her dresser she began retrieving her clothes for the day, she hoped she didn't come out looking like a mess, given how rushed she was right now.

"Ahh Chi-chan, I was having such a good dream." Tabanae had pocked her head over top of the bead from where she had been thrown. "Why'd you go and end it."

"Unlike some people I have duties to attend to." She placed special emphasis on the word people, she turned her attention back to getting dressed.

"I was hoping to have some fun today too." She turned to launch a scowl at Tabanae only to find that Tabanae was fully dressed. Her mind tried to understand what she was seeing for a second before she forcefully stopped it, Tabanae was not something that could be understood by mortal minds.

She quickly regained her composure that had been lost, "I don't have time for that," it wouldn't do to inform Tabanae that she wasn't interested in the first place. That would only end up encourage things she didn't want to happen. "And why are you here in the first place, I highly doubt is was the Individual tournament seeing as you failed to appear every other year."

"Do I need a reason to come see my wife, after all we don't see each other very much." Tabanae was very upbeat at the moment, then her tone changed. "Truth be told there are a few reasons why I'm here this year, first of I want to get a better look at those three IS units." Made sense, given the capabilities shown by those three IS units exceeded all other IS units currently built. "And I've prepared Houki-nee's IS." And back to not being serious again. At the very least Chifuyu now had an idea of what to prepare for ahead of time so she could get a head start on heading of any potential disasters caused by Tabanae, there was going to be at least one.

"Try not to break anything while your at it." Probably to late.

"I wouldn't suggest trying to get coffee this morning." Yep, to late, her face and palm collided, was Tabanae trying to make this morning painful. Wait she already knew the answer to that and it was a resounding yes. Tabanae made herself scarce by exiting the room via the window, why couldn't she use the door like a normal person. Then she realized that would make Tabanae normal, and if it was one thing Tabanae went out of her way not to be it was normal.

She quickly finished dressing and left the room hoping to track down Houki before class started so she could 'explain' the situation before Tabanae showed up. It would be so much easier to have some control over the situation before hand than try and contain it afterwords.

Doing a quick check of both the cafeteria and the dorms she didn't find Houki, so she decided just to go to the classroom and see if Houki was there. Fortunately Houki was in the classroom, unfortunately she arrived after Maya had started the class, so there wasn't any time to get in a semi private chat with Houki. The first period passed without incident, which only made her more nervous as all it meant was that something was bound to happen later.

She approached Houki, "meet me in the third arena hanger during lunch."

"Yes, but may I ask why?"

"It will become apparent when you arrive." Given Houki's attitude towards Tabanae it was better to leave the girl unawares for now. She was also hoping Tabanae would actually show up, seeing as she was coming up with a plan as she went, not ideal but it was all she had.

She spent the remaining time until lunch trying to predict what kind of problems would occur next, unfortunately she was having no luck. Between teenagers and Tabanae there were simply to many possibilities of things that could happen, that wasn't even counting what the visitors might do. But at least she was not responsible for them unless a student was involved, so it migrated some of the problems to someone else.

When lunch came she made her way down to the third arena hanger with Houki, the trip itself was uneventful save for the whispers of a few students who saw them. While she went into the hangar itself Houki went into the change rooms, she hoped Tabanae didn't set up an ambush in there. She began turning on lights and some of the consoles in the hangar, she was just finishing up when Houki came running out of the change room, thankfully fully dressed. Tabanae who was following her, wasn't. She had to resist the urge to smack someone with a heavy object.

Houki shot her a glare, she probably deserved it. "Tabanae, get dressed."

"But I feel comfortable like this, besides it isn't as though either of you haven't seen it before, or has Houki-nee's chest not fully developed yet." Houki's face went beet red.

"Well the rest of us don't, so please get dressed so we can move on. We don't have all day."

"You're no fun." With a twirl and a flash of light Tabanae was back to wearing her dress, well that certainly explained somethings. "Lets get started then." Tabanae pointed at the hanger door, "open," the hangers door opened and something came flying in. Houki ducked out of the way as the object, no giant carrot landed near where she had been standing, sometimes she really wished Tabanae would take things seriously and not be childish about them. The carrot opened from the bottom revealing a red IS unit inside. "I present to you the Akatsubaki, the first fourth generation IS in existence." While the unit itself looked impressive, Chifuyu doubted that it was truly fair to call it a fourth generation unit while everyone else was only just beginning to build third generation prototypes.

"I sincerely doubt that, it looks more like a high end third generation machine to me."

"It doesn't sound as impressive if you put it that way, so I'm going to stick with my name for it. Besides it is superior to all current IS prototypes and production models, even those three heavy weight units. Not only does it have shield strength comparable to them, but it does so without compromising it's mobility. Then there is my completely revolutionary new armour design, I call it fold out armour. Houki-nee, why haven't you gotten in your IS yet?"

Houki ignored her sister and instead glared at Chifuyu. "Is this what you brought me down here for, to accept a gift from this woman. I trusted you Ms. Orimura and you simply trown it away as though it's nothing. I thought I made it clear years ago that I wanted nothing to do with her," Houki jabbed a finger at Tabanae. "It's because of her that I had to give up everything I cared for, everything. And now you want me to just accept her back as though nothing happened. I can't do that." Houki's voice was becoming hoarse, there was also some moisture gathering at the bottom of her eyes.

"Houki." There was a sharp edge she had never heard before in Tabanae's voice. "That's enough. I know what happened to you in the past was wrong, and I know that it was because of me that it happened. But I had my reasons, ones that I can't go back on. Houki, I've spent the last ten years trying to make up what I've taken from you and everyone else who was affected. I-"

"Shut up. It's because of you that I was forced to attend this stupid school. Everyone expects great things from me because I'm your sister, they all expect me to become like you. I didn't want this, I didn't want any of this, all I wanted was to be left alone. But I can't even get that all because I'm your sister."

"Because you came here you were able to see Ichika again, weren't you." No matter how much she wanted to stop this, they needed to do this if they were ever going to be on speaking terms with each other again.

"I-, leave him out of this. Besides if it hadn't been for you I wouldn't have had to leave him in the first place. Why can't you seem to understand that I don't want to be associated with you at all."

"I'm sorry Houki," Tabanae got down on her knees and was begging to Houki, "I'm sorry for everything that's happened to you because of me. So please let me make it up to you."

"You think a simple apology will wipe away everything that's happened to me, do you."

"No, but it's all I can do at the moment. So please Houki accept Akatsubaki as the first part of an apology. I made it just for you, and no one else. So please accept it, Houki."

Houki just stood there for several seconds, Chifuyu could tell that the girl was trying to think, but of what she had no idea. "Fine, I'll take it your that insistent, but don't think this changes anything between us." With that Houki got into Akatsubaki, Tabanae began going through the adjustment stages for the IS unit.

"Well, this should do it, now why don't you get some practice in." The hangar doors opened, "head out and start doing some manoeuvres." Houki took off out into the arena, which thanks to her ban on personal use was empty.

Turning to Tabanae, "you sure it will be alright like this."

"At the moment, yes. Though I really have to make it up to her for what she went through because of me."

"I see."

"Well then I believe it's time to get started." It amazed her how Tabanae could switch between serious and childish so quickly. "Houki get ready." At the end of the hangar several missile emplacements appeared, a few seconds later the missiles launched of into the arena. "You have two main weapons equipped right now, Amatsuki and Karaware. Amatsuki specialized for one on one combat while Karaware is optimized for engaging multiple targets. Use Karaware to knock out those missiles."

In the arena Houki materialized a katana in one hand, while dodging the missiles. "Are you sure this is a good idea."

"Don't worry Chi-chan, they're just duds it's not like they're any threat to Akatsubaki. I think, I'm pretty sure they're duds at any rate." Her palm and forehead collided, so much for sanity prevailing, well at least Houki seemed to have figured out how to use Karaware. Over half the missiles were gone from the sky, with a slash of her blade Houki removed another five. It looked like she had worried over nothing, she allowed herself to relax a bit.

The door at the rear of the hangar opened and Maya rushed in. "Ms. Orimura, there's a situation in the public gym that requires your immediate presence." Well so much for relaxing.

"Maya can you keep an eye on things here, I should be back shortly. Try and keep anyone from strangling Ms. Shinonono, despite how much you may feel like it."

Tabanae chose that moment to add her own comment, "I wonder if I should change my name from Shinonono to Orimura. After all-" She didn't get a chance to finish as the book Maya had been holding collided with her forehead.

Maya looked completely confused, maybe the book had been ripped a little to fast from her hands, well at least Tabanae was stopped from making the situation worse. "Is that Tabanae?" Maya had come out of her stupor and was pointing at where Tabanae lay on the floor. Maybe the book had been thrown a little to hard.

"Yes, now if you can excuse me I have a situation to resolve." She exited the hangar and went as quickly as she could to the public gym, with any luck the incident would be quick and simple to resolve allowing her to get back to the arena before Tabanae did anything. Her hopes of a quick resolution were squashed when she opened the gym doors, and saw a cheering crowd.

_Earlier, Study Hall_

Cassandra Fraiser looked over the notes Carter had given her on the Aile, she suspected that Carter had actually whittled them out of Rodney. This was all in preparation for her entrance into the individual tournament, even though she hadn't wanted to enter in the first place, Carter had insisted. Quite well considering that her mother had backed down, while all Teal'c had said was 'indeed'. Jack and John hadn't wanted to argue with carter and Daniel was more interested in the archeological notes he had brought with him to care.

The only real difference between the Aile and her own Blitz was the wing mounts. While Aile mounted a pair of railguns, her own unit had larger engines. Even the weapon load-outs where the same with the exception of the close combat weapons, Carter hadn't included those with the information she had given. Though she had already seen the one they used, so it wasn't like she was actually missing something.

There was really nothing in there she didn't already know, so she closed it and opened up the next file Carter had sent her, the one with the data on the Buster. Probably the only other unit she had to worry about. She had just began looking over the data on buster when the door behind her flew open and Nizru came in.

"Cassandra come quick, Tatenashi challenged someone to a fight, they're over at the gym."

"Who she fighting anyways?"

"It was some guy, big, tall, dark skin and he was wearing a black hat." Something about that description sounded familiar.

"What kind of hat?"

"Well lets see, it was black," Nizru you already said that, "it was like one of those hats you wear during winter, no beaks or rims. He also had no eyebrows." Wait no eyebrows and wearing a tuque, why was Teal'c fighting Tatenashi. And why wasn't she watching.

She closed the file on the Buster before grabbing Nizru by the wrist and dragging her towards the gym. "We don't want to miss this."

"Cassandra what's up?"

"Tatenashis's about to get her ass kicked." Every head in the room perked up, she ended up leading an entire crowd to the gym. Not her finest moment.

In the gym itself, Teal'c and Tatenashi were standing opposite on an area marked of by duck tape. Teal'c was holding a wooden staff with some extra pieces duck taped to the ends, while Tatenashi was holding a wooden sword. "Do you still wish to go through with this."

"Of course I do, what do you think you can actually beat me big guy. Or do you just want to avoid the fight altogether. Afraid of getting hurt."

"No, I am more concerned with your safety."

"Touching, but you don't stand a chance. Now lets begin."

"Indeed." Tatenashi rushed forwards swinging her sword at Teal'cs mid-section, Teal'c simply moved his staff to the side to block the strike. There was a loud clack as the two pieces of wood struck, Tatenashi drew back her sword and launched another series of strikes. Teal'c blocked each of them with slight shifts of his staff.

Tatenashi threw a kick which Teal'c caught in his hand, he then threw the foot away from him causing Tatenashi to lose her balance and fall over. She quickly recovered and tried to take out one of Teal'cs legs with her sword only to be blocked by Teal'cs staff. The next few minutes consisted of Tatenashi trying to land a blow, only to have Teal'c intercept everyone of her attempts. For some reason Teal'c didn't attack, which was really strange to Cassandra as he could easily hit Tatenashi, and each of his hits would hurt, bad. She winced a bit at remembering the sparring sessions she had talked Teal'c into, those had been painful.

It was then that she noticed that during the entire fight, Teal'cs feet had remained firmly planted in the same spot, Tatenashi had failed to force him to move. She now understood, Teal'c wasn't actually fighting he was instead toying with Tatenashi. Well it at least explained why Tatenashi was still standing, was Teal'c finding this amusing or fun, because just about everyone watching was.

Tatenashi was beginning to tire as was evident from the thin beads of sweat and her increasingly irregular breathing. It looked like Teal'c wouldn't so much win as simply not lose as Tatenashi simply gave out from exhaustion. She charged again trying to land a strike, her sword became a blur as she struck from multiple angles looking for a hole in Teal'cs guard. Only to have each strike blocked with what appeared to be little effort from Teal'c.

Just then the doors at the entrance of the gym opened up, "Would someone mind explaining what is going on here." She recognized the voice as belonging to Ms. Orimura, class 1-As teacher, also someone she was determined to remain on the good side of.

Teal'c turned and looked at the door that had just opened. Tatenashi took advantage of Teal'c being distracted and swung her sword at Teal'cs head. There was a clack followed by a grunt followed by Tatenashi and her sword hitting the ground. Tatenashi landed a few feet away from Teal'c while her sword when clattering along the crowd until it stopped by Ms. Orimura's feet. The blunt end of Teal'cs staff was on the ground while the part that it had been attached to was by Teal'cs head. For several tense seconds no one moved.

Chifuyu watched as Tatenashi took advantage of the distraction in her opponent that her arrival had caused. The strike was aimed at his head, and without even turning to look he knocked the blade away, sending it clattering across the floor to her, before using the curved end of his staff to knock Tatenashi's foot out from underneath of her. And in a final move drove the blunt end of his staff straight into Tatenashi's stomach. Tatenashi landed with a thud on the floor, thankfully the floor was padded preventing any serious injury.

Bending over she picked up Tatenashi's blade from where it had stopped at her feet before advancing into the marked of area on the floor. Her first priority was finding out why the two of them had been fighting in the first place, though knowing Tatenashi it could be anything. The students and several visitors who had gathered here were whispering amongst themselves, any chance of keeping this quiet were out. Though it didn't seem to serious in the first place.

She walked into the marked of area and bent over to take a look at Tatenashi who was bent over and clutching her stomach. That blow must have hurt. Helping Tatenashi to her feet she got two of the spectating students to take her to the infirmary, before turning to the other party involved in this.

He was above average in size with heavily tanned skin, he sported a black hat on his head which struck her as rather odd given the time of year. But above all it was his eyes and the way he regarded her that was most telling. He was sizing her up, from the way she walked to the way she held herself, then there was the way in which he held himself. He was ready to fight at any moment.

"All right that enough, all students you have classes, I suggest you go to them." There was some groaning as the students left, some of the other spectators left as well, probably sensed that this was over. "I don't have authority over the rest of you but this is over." The few who had stayed behind got up and left.

The guy Tatenashi had been fighting turned to go as well, "I want to speak with you for a minute." He stopped and turned to her, "first of, staff." She held out her hand for the remains of the staff he was holding. He tossed it in a low arc which she easily caught, she was however caught of guard by it's weight. She had been expecting it to be one of the regular wooden staffs, instead it felt heavy enough to be one of the wood-metal thread composite staffs that had been gathering dust in the storeroom. No wonder Tatenashi was feeling it, the amount of force required to break one of these was quite high. "May I ask why the two of you were fighting."

"She challenged me, and even though I gave here many chances to back down she insisted on the fight."

"I see." Great another incident involving representative candidate stupidity. That being said it had been a long time since she had come across someone as skilled as he was. "Meet me in the third dojo at around noon tomorrow, and come ready to fight." Some deep part of her was exited at the prospect of once again facing of against an opponent who would pose a challenge for her.

_Fourth Arena, Hangar Two_

Rodney McKay smiled as his latest creation was unboxed from its travelling crate. It was the second third generation prototype he had worked on, the first being the Aile, and like the Aile it was being handed of to a teenager. He would never understand why anyone thought handing over what was one of the strongest pieces of infantry hardware over to people who were still to young to enlist. Well maybe once he was in charge that would change, but for now he wasn't so he had just go along.

But it had been nice to be able to go back over the Aile design and make several changes that he hadn't been able to do before. In theory this machine had a slight edge over the Aile in every category except armour thickness. But the five millimeter difference wasn't likely to be noticed as the shield was the primary defence, and it accelerated slightly faster than it's sister unit. It had been dubbed the Mouretsu by his Japanese colleagues, he had suspected that they were making fun of him behind his back so he had went and registered the unit under that name. So now the Mouretsu was being unpacked as they waited for the girl who was about to become a representative candidate for Japan.

Bringing out his tablet he began running through the pre-start diagnostic, everything came back green though he didn't think it would be any different. It still didn't hurt and it insured him that he had a guarantee that it wouldn't crash and burn on its debut, Carter would never let him live that down.

The IS unit was entering the final phases of preparation when the door at the back of the hangar opened, he didn't turn to look letting the other people do their jobs. Besides his Japanese needed work, so he let the others deal with what ever had come up.

"Dr. KcKay," he turned to the source of the voice to see the director of the project standing beside a young girl of maybe fifteen or sixteen. To young to be piloting an IS if you asked him. "This is the operator for the Mouretsu, Nizru Takanachi."

The girl bowed her head, "Pleased to meet you."

"And this is Dr. Rodney KcKay." He held out his hand and was surprised when the girl didn't take it, after a few awards moments he retracted it. "Now why don't we get started."

He lead the girl over to the IS, "hop in and we can get started." The girl climbed into the IS as he began doing the adjustments. "Alright start it up." Almost immediately his tablet was flooded with information from the IS, most of it was of no importance at the moment. Instead he focused on the few bits that were important, he began doing minute adjustments to the cockpit dimensions to fit the pilot.

It didn't take long as the IS itself was doing some of the adjustments, then came the tricky part, insuring that all systems where working. "Alright internal power grid is stable, lets run through some quick exercises." He took a few steps back, "start moving the limbs, we're going to insure that the unit has full range of motion." The IS took a step forwards and then another, all the while moving it's arms in random directions. Rodney was silently thankful that there was nothing else scheduled for him today as this looked like it was going to take a while.

_Orbit, Sheng'Li_

Master Joradin looked on as the forces belonging to Yu clashed with his own forces which belonged to Ba'al. It had been a gruelling time here for the last few weeks as losses mounted he had awaited the day when Ba'al would recall them and abandon the world to Yu. That day had never come, instead Ha'tak by Ha'tak they had broken the forces of Yu. It had cost them though, the hulks of broken Ha'taks were everywhere, while many more had been sent back to be repaired, a process that would take some time.

Thankfully the number of captured Ha'taks they had been able to send back had been immense, if he had to guess he would say almost three-quarters of their lost Ha'tak had been captured from Yu. And now the final clashes were beginning, if Yu didn't send reinforcements the space around Sheng'li would belong to Ba'al in a matter of days.

Plasma shot through space, lighting up the shields of the Ha'taks. Three hundred Ha'taks of Ba'al faced of against barely fifty Ha'taks of Yu, it was a far cry from the battles of a few weeks ago that had seen hundreds of Ha'taks clashing. Normally they would be focusing fire on individual Ha'taks while ignoring others, but with the massive numerical advantage each one of Yu's Ha'taks had between five and ten Ha'taks of Ba'al attacking it. The whole fight was less a battle and more of a slaughter as Ha'tak after Ha'tak of Yu fell to the weight of fire brought against them. It was not all in their favour though as at least half dozen Ha'taks of Ba'al fell silent.

"Master Joradin, we have detected multiple hyperspace windows forming."

"Where?"

"Directly behind Yu's fleet." So this battle would continue after all. "Rear line of ships is moving back, they're retreating." He could hardly believe that this madness was about to come to an end.

"Confirm with the other Ha'taks." The last remaining Ha'taks of Yu began to disengage from the forces of Ba'al.

"Confirmed they are retreating." Just over a dozen Ha'taks of Yu made it to hyperspace, after all this time they had finally won.

"We have received orders for our group to go and aid our forces on the ground."

"Move us into position above Sheng'li and have the other ships in the group do the same." So it was now time to end this once and for all, and without a fleet the forces of Yu were at the mercy of the orbiting Ha'taks. "Inform our forces on the ground then ready all cannons to fire on the armies of Yu, I do not want any stray shots hitting our own warriors."

_Surface, Sheng'li_

"All of you get in position now." The call had arrived a short while ago that Yu's fleet had retreated, and their own fleet was moving into position to bombard Yu's army. Now Delang was forced to give up a very good position so that he and his warriors would not be caught by the cannon fire from orbit. He felt some regret at leaving a pair of quad staff mounts behind, they had seen him through many engagements since acquiring them from two separate destroyed speeders. They were well worth having to have a pair of warriors haul each of them around.

But now they had to be abandoned as he didn't have the time to take them with him, the good news was that it was almost over anyways so their loss was not as bad as it could have been. Still he wished he could get several of those for his next mission. They had forced the forces of Yu out of the city but had been unable to force them back further, mainly due to their severe numerical advantage being more pronounced in the open. While the new rifles Ba'al had supplied had given Delang and his warriors an advantage in the city, despite their lack of numbers.

And now they were abandoning the outer defences to protect them selves from the incoming orbital shots. They were tacking cover in the bottom of buildings near the wall. Is was easy to tell when the first shots landed, each one of them caused the ground to shake, and idilly he wondered if the building he was in was going to collapse from all the shacking.

After a few moments the shacking stopped, without a word his warriors raced back to their previous positions. Both mounts had been blown off their positions, one was found at the bottom of the wall, and while it had survived the impact it was not battle worthy. The other one was nowhere to be found.

Beyond the walls was absolute devastation, scorch marks from the cannon impacts dotted the landscape, the few remaining trees had been uprooted or had burned down. And everywhere there was bits and pieces of Yu's army. Most of it had been annihilated by the cannon blasts, while the few remaining survivors were in no shape to threaten the city. After four months of fighting the planet was theirs.

"Have warriors on speeders sent out to capture or kill the remaining warriors of Yu." The warrior gave a short bow before running of, now they just needed to clean up the planet so that Ba'al could make use of it.

_IS Academy, Earth_

Cassandra Fraiser brought her tray of food over to one of the tables on the outskirts of the cafeteria, at the moment she was feeling rather good about the day. First Cecilia and Nizru hadn't done anything today that made her want to smack them. Two Teal'c had utterly defeated Tatenashi in a one on one fight, that had been something to see. She couldn't really feel sorry for the girl as the few times Cassandra had been near her, she had been extremely arrogant.

And finally they were serving spaghetti for supper. One of the few meals she would go out of her way to get. So today had been a good day, now if she could just make it to the end without incident it would be a perfect day.

The spaghetti itself wasn't that bad, her mom made better, but that didn't mean it tasted bad and it was filling. But no matter how much she tried to ignore it, something at the back of her mind was nagging her, something she had forgotten about. She really couldn't think of anything immediate so she did her best to ignore it and enjoy her meal.

It was at that point that Cecilia and Nizru along several other people in their class took their seats at her table, she had selected one of the larger tables just for this. Nizru and Cecilia were having a rather heated discussion which she completely tuned out, she most likely didn't want to know the contents anyways. She just went back to enjoying her meal, and due to how loud their argument was she couldn't talk to anyone else.

All was going smoothly until one of them slammed their hands down on the table causing her tray to jump up before landing on their hand. She was just about to remove her tray when said hand came flying back up bringing her tray and food with it. Through some universal feat her half finished plate of spaghetti landed square in her face.

The imediate surroundings quieted down quickly enough that she could hear her cup hit the floor behind her along with the rest of the non plate contents of her tray. The tray itself fell back onto the table after it had finished pressing her plate into her face. After a few seconds her plate fell back onto the tray.

"Nizru, Cecilia," the calm in her voice surprised her a bit as she was absolutely furious at the moment, "I believe we need to have a nice long chat, right NOW." She put all of her rage into the last word, she was fairly sure she heard a squeak from somewhere nearby. The rest of the people in the cafeteria suddenly discovered how to teleport quickly leaving her alone with Nizru and Cecilia.

_Later_

Someone had been kind enough to leave her some napkins so she could get the worst of the spaghetti off of her face. Cecilia and Nizru were sitting on their knees on the floor in front of her doing their best to avoid eye contact, they were also trying to look as innocent as possible as she cleaned a bit more of the spaghetti from her face.

"I've put this off longer than I should have, truthfully I should have dealt with it on the first day I became aware of it. Before I thought that if I just ignored it you two would eventually give up, and when you didn't all I thought was that you just needed more time to. I suppose I just truly did not want to have this particular conversation, but at the moment I have no other choice. I feel obligated to stop both of your actions before someone else gets hurt, partially because I am the source of the problem and partially because I'm probably the only one who can get you to stop."

"Now I will state it quite clearly for both of you, I am not interested in having any sort of romantic involvement with either of you under any circumstances. I have no idea why the two of you have those feelings nor do I want to know how you came to them. But I will but a stop to this bickering you do over it, if you had kept it to simple arguments I would have been content to let it be. But then you to decided to get physical about it and started involving other people. And being the cause of your bickering in the first place I felt the need to step in, your latest argument proved why I should have done something earlier. But I naively thought that the two of you would sort it out on your own."

"I value the two of you as friends and nothing more, and if you're that desperate for a romantic partner look at the person on the ground next to you, or one of the other girls in this school. I'm sure you if you looked you could find someone. Any comments or questions." The two of them shook their heads, well it looked like at least something had gotten through their heads. "Good, now if you will excuse me I need to go clean up after the little incident earlier."

From the shadows near one of the cafeteria entrances and out of sight of the three girls Chifuyu watched as Cassandra left. From appearances her intervention would be unnecessary at this time, though she would need to keep an eye on things as all three of them were representative candidates. So if anything went wrong it would do so fairly spectacularly. For the moment however that the situation was stable for the time being, it had also forced her to reevaluate her opinion of Cassandra. From a hotheaded idiot who cared about her friends, to a hotheaded idiot who knew when the metaphorical foot had to come down.

Give her a few years to cool of and gain some experience and she might turn into a good leader, though right now her decision making skills could use some work. Though that was something that only really came with experience. Content with what had happened Chifuyu started to make her way back to her own room and the inevitable mess that was Tabanae.

Getting to her room she was relieved to find that Sasha had already gone to sleep, while it meant she had to keep the volume down the shower was free. And Sasha wouldn't be asking as to why her hair was covered in spaghetti, something she didn't think Sasha would understand. It was a simple matter to get the spaghetti out of her hair along with all the grime that had accumulated over the day. Her afterclass club activities had most likely been the cause of most of it, boxing wasn't something you could do without some work.

She finished her shower and got changed before heading out the shared washroom, only to find Sasha staring groggily at her. Letting loose a yawn, Sasha merely confirmed what was going on, "so it was just you, I thought for a moment something interesting was going on." Before crawling right back into her bed. It seemed that no matter what happened some things and people never changed, at least Sasha wasn't hitting on her.

Chifuyu opened the door to her room to find Tabanae sitting on the edge of the sole bed with several computer screens on in front of her. From where she was she couldn't see what was on them, not that it likely concerned her, but it might give her a heads up for what Tabanae planned on doing next. On the screens themselves were what looked like the biographies of three different people, two of which she recognized. One was on Cassandra Fraiser and the other one was on the man who had fought and beaten Tatenashi today. If the biography was to believed his name was Teal'c Chulak, very odd name.

The last one she belonged to some guy by the name of John O'Neill, whom she didn't recognize, but the last name seemed familiar to her. Perhaps she had heard t before as she was pretty sure she did not know anyone with that last name. Getting on her knees behind Tabanae, Chifuyu let her chin come to rest on top of her head as her arms wrapped around the shorter woman from behind. "So, what are you looking at? And why are you looking up one of my students."

"Just some stuff, THAT IS DRIVING ME CRAZY." Tabanae shouted out the last bit, and Chifuyu had to stifle a chuckle, it was rare for Tabane to run into a problem she couldn't solve. So Chifuyu had to make the most of the few times she did, besides when Tabanae got frustrated she was kind of cute.

"And why is the biography of one of my students driving you crazy."

"Because everything before two thousand five on it only exists electronically, no paper trail from before then. Which should be impossible, everyone born before last year has a paper trail, there simply wasn't enough stuff being created solely digitally. But all three of them are missing paper trails before a certain point, Cassandra and Teal'c oh-five, and John in twenty-eleven."

Now that Tabanae had put it in perspective it did seem a little strange. "Could it be that you're just missing something? It's not like you can go through and find everything there is digitally, after all a lot of people wised up about security after the White night incident."

"Maybe, but something just doesn't fit, and it's driving me crazy."

"Why don't you drop it for tonight, its not as though it will go anywhere fast so you can try again tomorrow. Besides I'm going to be seeing one of them tomorrow anyways so you can see if you can get anything then."

"Yeah, that sounds good." The screens disappeared in a flash of light, just how much stuff does she have in quantum storage? "You coming to bed."

"I should be the one asking that seeing as it is my bed. Yes you can share it with me for the time you spend her." Tabanae practically beamed. "But try anything and you're on the floor, understood." Tabanae gave a quick nod, probably the best she was going to get. In a flash of light Tabanae's day clothes disappeared, before she got into the bed and under the covers. Chifuyu got ready before climbing in next to her.

It was only when she was in the bed did she realize how tired she was as the moment her head touched the pillow she was asleep.

Tabanae watched as Chifuyu quickly fell asleep after hitting her pillow. It was kind of surprising to see Chifuyu this tired, though she supposed that her antics were partially responsible for it. Tabanae still thought that Chifuyu worried to much over the little things, it wasn't like she was doing things without any sort of plan. Still she could understand why Chifuyu was worried given her track record, but she had promised Chifuyu not to do anything that big again. And in surprise to both herself and everyone else had actually kept that promise so far.

Though perhaps she should stop being so hypocritical about it to Chifuyu, after all there were several things that she was worried about that Chifuyu would consider irrelevant. And besides Chifuyu was just trying to protect her, so maybe she should not make it harder for Chifuyu than it already was. But there was no fun in that.

Still she couldn't help but feel safe when she was with Chifuyu, it was just the aura that was projected around her. She was like the big sister everyone wanted but never had, always looking out for them no matter what. Chifuyu was her rock, the one thing that she could always rely on. Wrapping her arms around Chifuyu's belly Tabanae snuggled up to the larger woman and drifted off to sleep, her thoughts filled with the joys of her life.


	18. Chapter 13-Questions

_Chapter Thirteen, Questions_

_Palace, Capital of Sokar, Erekan, June 2015_

From his throne room Sokar could monitor the progress of the damnable legions of Anubis's Kull as they marched through his new capital city. The last one had been lost to him a few years ago and he had been lucky enough to have had this world with a relatively thriving city on it. Now he was in the process of losing it as well, he had not expected Anubis to be able to bring and invasion force to this world without getting several planets closer. The live support requirements to move an army over that distance with ships was simply to large, the army would be suffocating long before they arrived.

But through some dark and twisted design Anubis had managed it, and now his army was cutting its way through his capital. His own army was getting swept aside, the Kull were simply too much for his Jaffa warriors to handle without heavy weapons. And even with heavy weapon emplacements they still could only hold them for a bit before being overrun.

From the moment Anubis had set forces down on this world he had already given it up, there would be no way to break Anubis's hold on the Chappa'ai. And with that Anubis could bring as many Kull as he wished, and there was nothing he could do about that. But he had prepared for such an eventuality, Anubis could have this world but there would be nothing of use left.

When it had become clear that victory would be impossible, quite quickly he had sent out orders to ready one last surprise for anyone who thought they could have one of his throne worlds. Anubis could have this world, but nothing of value would be gained. And he would insure that Anubis would lose a lot of Kull and warriors.

Near the rear of his Palace was a heavily modified Tel'ka, his own personal transport for when he had to go somewhere and a Ha'tak was unneeded or unavailable. He boarded it along with a small routine of his personal guards. Before taking off he used his gauntlet to send a signal that would trigger the countdown on his last surprise. It was a pity to lose so many trained warriors, but the majority of his own warriors were elsewhere in his empire. And almost half of the warriors who had been on planet at the time of the invasion had been quietly removed over the past few days. So while he would still lose a fair number of warriors, it would be a minor setback rather than a major one.

As the Tel'ka made its way out of the atmosphere, he waited for just the right moment before sending the signal, also know as when the Tel'ka was safely out of the blast radius. On the surface below several hundred naquadah bombs detonated, they had been carefully placed to insure maximum effect.

They did not disappoint. The whole of his recently abandoned city lit up with a white glow as the bombs scowered the area nearby each of them clean of anything. While outside of the city limits other bombs went of destroying supply anything that had been deemed to be worth something. Dozens of farms, Al'kesh, and mineral caches vanished, along with several hundred Uda'jeets. Near total destruction, he let a smile develop across his hosts lips, Anubis could have this world, but it would cost him dearly.

Sokar let his thoughts wander across his current plans, while almost all of them ha been set back by Anubis's invasion, he was still in this fight. And he was determined to remove Anubis, no matter what it took. That particular Goa'uld had proven to be to much of a pain in the Nik'ta to be allowed to live.

Now, the question remained of how to go about it.

_Anubis's Base, Tartarus_

Anubis had to resit the urge to break something as he went over the reports coming in from Erekan. Not only had Sokar manged to escape, but he had also managed to wipe out almost eight thousand Kull warriors before leaving. That had to be the largest single loss of Kull in one battle he had ever suffered, which wasn't even including the other losses he had suffered along the rest of Sokar's worlds and the handful lost to the Tau'ri. Though that had been an inconsequential number compared to the rest of the losses. Even working at full capacity it would take him close to two months to replace those Kull.

And then there had been the Jaffa casualties, and unlike the Kull were much harder to replace but unfortunately necessary to his war-effort. And add to that the need to find Sokar's new capital world, his resources could only go so far, and he was quickly approaching the end of them. He needed a new strategy and he needed it now, while he could still had resources to spare.

The only upside to his situation was that the other system lords were in similar situations. Which wasn't much of an upside. But there was one way in which he was better of than the other system lords and that was ground forces. Thanks to his Kull warriors he had the best ground forces of the Goa'uld system lords. Though even that was hollow as he didn't have the fleet strength necessary to take full advantage of that and the Tau'ri had proven repeatedly that they could take on a substantial force of Kull and win. It seemed to be a cruel curse in this war that those with the best ground forces had the fewest ships.

_IS Academy, Earth_

Daniel Jackson was going over his notes that he had spread out over an entire table in the cafeteria in the 'mall'. Jack hadn't let him set up the hotel so he had to make to out here, at least out here there were no 'cooperate interests' he could be interfering with. And while the stuff he was dealing with was somewhat sensitive in nature, having it spread out over a table like this had been enough of a deterrent to prevent anyone from coming over and taking a look. And given that the cafeteria wasn't busy at this hour of the day there wasn't many people around to begin with.

At the moment he was looking over the writing found they had found on PC5-336 a few months ago, and while he had not made any progress in translating them he was confident that he could, given enough time. He had sort of translated the writings into English by a character to character translation, but it had only produced gibberish. He was going over the gibberish and the untranslated version to see if he could spot any patterns he could use to try and get a grasp as to what was written.

He hadn't made much progress, but it what he did have sounded less like gibberish than what he had before. Ohh who was he kidding it was still gibberish, he was just trying to make himself feel good. Still it felt good to be working on a mystery that he could potentially solve, even if it was frustrating at the moment it would much sweeter when he finally figured it out. So with that in mind he set his head down and went to work.

He was so absorbed in his work that he failed to notice the white-clad girl approach, who then proceeded to announce their presence with a sign song like voice. "What'ca doin."

His head immediately snapped up to regard the short white clothed, silver-haired girl standing over the table. His mind then did a double take as he realized that they had silver hair rather than some sane colour that normal people had. He also realized that they were looking over technically classified information, he just hoped that they wouldn't immediately jump to the conclusion that it was alien in origin. "Just some archaeology work, why." He really hoped they didn't start asking pointed question that he couldn't exactly answer.

"So, trying to find lost treasure." He gave silent thanks to Indiana Jones for giving a false perspective on what archaeology actually was.

"Yeah, now if you don't mind I'm kind of busy."

"So trying to decode the map that leads to the treasure." The girl pulled out a chair and sat down opposite of him, her cheerfulness was annoying.

"Sort of, I'm trying to translate this writing, and it's proving rather difficult." He had to stop her from picking up one of the sheets of paper he had written out.

"So what's the problem?" Why couldn't she just leave, he had made it clear he wanted to be left alone didn't he.

"I'm trying to deal with multiple dialects of the same language, they all use the same letters but use different words." The girl didn't respond immediately, instead tapping her finger against her chin.

He silently hoped she would leave, a hope that was shattered when she spoke again. "So it's like French and English."

"Yes it is..." he nearly smacked himself in the head when he realized it. "Why didn't I think of that before, they're not different dialects they're different languages." In hindsight he realized that he probably would have never considered it, after all he had only ever seen one language written in ancient script, and so had assumed that only ancients wrote in that. But if they had been recording for someone else, or a way to master another language from the written version, then that could explain it. After all most earth languages could be written in different alphabets, an example being Japanese written using the Latin alphabet.

"So you solved it!" Her excitement had found a way to increase, he hadn't thought that possible.

"No, but I have an idea as to how I can solve it." And he had a feeling about who he should talk to for one of the languages. "Now if you'll excuse me I have some work to do." He out his head down and stated making some notes on his tablet hoping that they would leave.

Not even three seconds after he put his head down he became aware of another presence near the table. Looking up he saw that Cassandra was standing at by the table. "Hey Daniel, she bugging you." Cassandra pointed her thumb at the other girl.

"Yes."

"You want me to get her out of your hair."

"Please."

"Give me two secs." Cassandra turned to the other girl. "Hey Sasha you want to go for ice-cream." This caused the other girl, Sasha, to bolt out of her chair hitting the table on the way up knocking some of the papers to the floor. "You want help picking them up." Cassandra asked him.

"No, just get her," pointing to Sasha, "out of here."

"Will do." Sasha who had run of it a bit came rushing back and grabbed hold of Cassandra's arm, all but dragging her along. "You owe me an ice-cream for this."

"Will do." For keeping his work intact that was a small price to pay. He bent down and started picking the fallen papers back up. After collecting all the ones that had fallen to the floor he started looking through them to try and find where they had been before. They had unfortunately gotten all mixed up, and he had forgotten to label them. This was going to be a pain to fix.

_Third Dojo_

Chifuyu straightened out her training clothes for the hundredth time, despite the fact that she was only waiting for her opponent to show up she was acting like a girl waiting for her date to show up. It was unnerving to her, and Tabanae who was acting as her second was not helping with her relentless teasing. Finally what seemed like forever, but was closer to a few minutes, Teal'c showed up with a short blond-haired woman in tow, most likely his second. She also noted that Tabanae had become rather exited. "Anything I should know about," after thinking about it for a second, "what are you planning."

"Nothing at the moment, though that might change." She had to resit the urge to smack her forehead with her palm. "Though in answer to your first question, that woman beside Teal'c is none other than Dr. Samantha Carter. One of the United States lead designers of IS frames, she's the one who designed and built the Blitz." Well that was sort of useful to know. It took her three seconds to process what had been said and after she was done she did smack her forehead with her palm. By the time this fight was finished the two of them would have somehow come up with a fifth generation IS frame. Best to end this quickly for the worlds sake.

Turning to Teal'c, "I see you're ready to fight."

"Indeed I am. Though I still do not believe it wise for you to go through with this."

"You can still back out if you want to, I won't tell anyone."

"It is not my well being that I am concerned for. The student who faced me yesterday made an identical mistake, and even though you witnessed it you still wished to continue."

So, Tatenashi had a similar conversation with him before their fight. "She was an overconfident girl who has a lot to learn. I know very well how strong you are. Now let us begin."

"Indeed." The two of them stepped forwards into the marked off area on the floor, as the other two women moved of to one side of the Dojo. Readying their weapons, she a sword, him a staff, they clacked them together once before separating. They then circled each other for a few moments before she charged him.

Sword at shoulder height she thrust it at him, and as expected he parried. The blow sent her sword over to the right leaving her temporarily defenceless. He took advantage of that and brought the other end of his staff around to hit her. With a backwards hop she avoided his strike, however he quickly recovered without leaving her a chance at an opening. With some distance between them they began circling again.

Before they could continue she had to suppress a shiver running down her spine, judging by his reaction he had the same problem. They both turned to where the other two women were, only to find them deep in discussion over something. Honestly she didn't want to know, it would probably prevent her from sleeping at night. "Why do I get the feeling we're going to need another world by the time those two finish."

"I do not believe that will be sufficient, we will most likely need another universe." She wasn't sure what scarred her more, what he said or the fact that he said it completely seriously. She had to suppress another shiver as she really didn't want to know.

Exchanging a nod they both turned their attention back to the two women. "Alright, opposite sides now."

"But we were having such an interesting conversation." Tabanae replied in her innocent voice.

"Unfortunately, I want this world to survive past this evening. Finding another one won't be easy." She missed Teal'c raising an eyebrow at her last comment.

"Fine, fine. I guess we'll see who's better during the tournament tomorrow won't we."

"That we will." Maybe, just maybe they had worried over nothing, the two women seated themselves on opposite ends of the dojo. Though in this case it may be wise to take precautions.

Turning back to Teal'c, "alright then let us resume."

Carter watched as Teal'c and Chifuyu clashed again, she had missed the first little bit due to her talk with Tabanae. Though it had been an interesting if short conversation, while she acknowledged Tabanae's intellect, it was no match for the technology she had at her disposal. There was no way any IS frame she built using earth only technology and materials could hope to compete against the Blitz, which was the most advanced IS ever built. Despite everything Rodney said to the contrary, his units only win was a fluke victory, if the Aile and Blitz ever faced off in this tournament the difference in quality would be evident.

She was half expecting a rebuke from Jolinar at the last thought, but the symbiot was oddly quiet, which surprised her. _Jolinar?_

_Hmmm_

_JOLINAR!_

_Yes._

_You seem distracted._

_Not really, are you paying any attention to the fight? Actually_ she couldn't make out very much of what was happening. While she could tell when they separated, the rest just resembled a bunch of movements to her. _You're not are you._

_No._

_I'm curious about this woman Teal'c is fighting, she seems exceptionally strong. If didn't know better I would say that she is a Jaffa herself._

_How so?_

_She is way to strong to be a regular human, even the outliers do not display the level of strength she has. Coupled with that her muscles tone and their is no way she should be that strong._

_Could it be the effect an IS has on its pilot, she is the first ever pilot of an IS unit after all._

_Perhaps, though that is all speculation at any rate, I can however confirm that she does not have a symbiote in her so that is another possibility ruled out. And she does not seem the type to take performance enhancers._

_That doesn't rule out them being given to her without her knowledge._

_Perhaps, but it doesn't seem likely as the results are fairly obvious, and given that she posses something akin to a Jaffa's sense of honour she would have most likely backed out upon realizing that something was amiss. At the moment I cannot determine how she is as strong as she is._

_So an impasse, but even so she is still not as strong as a Jaffa master._

_True. _The fight was winding up, despite Chifuyu's best efforts she was outmatched by the Jaffa master over twice her age. Someone had once said that old age and trickery would trump youth and skill. Teal'c was both older, and due to being a Jaffa held a significant advantage in strength, and having fought for most of his life was also more skilled. Chifuyu never had any real chance at victory.

_Earlier_

Chifuyu lunged at Teal'c aiming her sword at his abdomen. As expected he blocked the attack and she hopped back as soon as he blocked, placing her out of range of a counter attack. He took a step forwards and thrust the end of his staff at her head, which she parried upwards. While her sword was near her head, he swung the bottom of his staff upwards, she barely managed to avoid getting the worst of it, ending up with a bruise on her thigh.

She backed up another few paces to get some room, and to get her breathing under control. She was slightly peeved that he didn't look to have broken a sweat. So far the score was her-zero, him-one, and add to that she was the one panting and this fight already looked to be going in his favour. At least she had decided to try one of Tabanae's suggestions to make the fight more interesting. Somethings were just never meant to be.

She had to block another one of his strikes, this one aimed at her leg, before moving away from the attack instead of backwards to prevent herself from stepping out of the marked area. She threw a one-handed strike at his head which he managed to block, but it distracted him long enough to get around him. However before she could exploit her position he had turned to face her, making an attack less likely to land.

They faced each other for a few moments before she tried to strike him with an uppercut, he merely pushed the blade to one side. This left her other side open allowing him to get a strike in. Pain exploded on the side of her stomach where the end of the staff hit, causing her to stumble before regaining her balance. Before she could fully recover she had to bring her sword up to block a downwards strike.

She dropped down onto one knee after he began applying his strength to his staff, it became quite apparent to her that if this kept up he would overpower her. So with a grunt of effort she angled her sword so that the staff went to one side. She then sprung back up to her feet just in time to bat away a lunge that had been going for her stomach. However the other end of the staff flew in from the other side slamming into her where she had taken a blow earlier. Pain exploded across her side again, this time even worse then before, causing her to drop to one knee. If this kept up she wouldn't be able to go on.

"Do you yield?" She looked up to see him standing over her.

"No." In his moment of surprise she managed to get a one-handed strike under his guard and into his stomach. This was then countered by the staff hitting her sore side again causing her to visibly wince in pain.

"I ask again, do you yield?"

Feeling her side and the pain coming from it, and given that she would most likely have trouble standing at the moment. "I yield." He returned his staff to an upright position and extended his hand to her. She briefly considered striking at him now but dismissed it, instead she took his outstretched hand and he pulled her to her feet.

"You fought well."

"I didn't think so."

"You forced me focus entirely on you, if this had been a battle field one of your allies could have used the opportunity to strike at me from behind."

"Didn't feel like it." Even thought she was now upright she was still clutching her side from the pain of the blows he had landed. One thing had been evident, and that was that she still had a long way to go before she could take on him in a one on one fight.

They exchanged a short bow before making their way to their respective seconds. She recognized the look in Tabanae's eyes as the look she gave when something had caught her interest. She hoped the other two would survive what ever Tabanae was planing, she was hoping for a rematch with him sometime in the future. "It's been a long time since you've lost in a straight up match, I think Shiro was the last one who managed that. And he was the one who taught you swordplay."

"Don't remind me. Heh, looks like even after all these years I still have room for improvement, guess Shiro was right, there is always room for improvement."

"He did say that didn't he, anyways I think you should go see the nurse those blows looked like they hurt." That they did.

Tabanae ended up helping her to the nurses office where the nurse herself began fretting over her condition. At the end of it all she was given a stern warning to not do any strenuous activity for the next few weeks less she aggravate her injuries. Tabanar hadn't taken that well, it wasn't like she was actually missing out on anything anyways. Letting out a sigh she made her way to the next class she had to teach while Tabanae followed along, she did have a semi disguise that she put on. But honestly it would probably raise more questions than it would prevent.

_Ascended Plane_

Oma Desala observed the on-goings of what was at the moment one of the most interesting places on this world. This world called 'earth' by it's current inhabitants, in an earlier age it had simply been known as UAW three-nine-seven-four, it's only feature of note the outpost placed on this world for monitoring purposes. Though now that outpost singled it out as one of the few worlds were one was still intact. Oh how the mighty had fallen.

She was mainly watching over one being by the name of Daniel Jackson, a brilliant mind in his own right, and a one time ascended being such as herself. He had however left their company after he had learned the limits of what he was allowed to accomplish, quite painfully. It was truly pity that she had been forced to erase his memories of his time while ascended, but it was better than the alternative. Annihilation. And even without those several months worth of memories he was still smart enough to begin solving the great mysteries of the universe.

Then there was the anomaly going by the name of Shinnonono Tabanae, she couldn't figure out how that particular human had created something so far ahead of the sciences of this world at the time. She had already ruled out ascended intervention, as she and the rest of those who would want to were forbidden from doing so and the others wouldn't do anything at all. Besides ascended intervention of the scale needed to cause her to create what she did wouldn't be possible to hide, and she could find no trace of anything that would indicate an ascended had been involved. No something else caused this, the question was what.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of another ascended presence nearby. She tensed up for a moment before recognizing it as Ganos Lal, she relaxed slightly though she did not lower her guard completely. They had been at each others throats before ascending, if it hadn't been for their partially shared ideal they would probably still be at each others throats. Even still they preferred to work on their own projects separately, though they didn't directly sabotaging the others projects.

So it was odd for Ganos to be here at the same time as her. She briefly considered going over and seeing what Ganos was interested in, but she wasn't given a chance as Ganos came to her. "And what are you here for Ganos."

"Something caught my attention, that's all. Would you believe that your precious Jackson actually went to a tower of Babel."

"What, but that would mean he has seen what was inside what was in there." That presented an opportunity that had been denied for the past ten thousand years. "I assume he took recordings of what was in there then."

"From all appearances, yes."

"Then we will be able to find what was secreted away in there."

Ganos merely chuckled, "it seemed that there was nothing but writing in there, nothing truly amazing. But knowledge is power."

"But can he understand it?"

"Doesn't look like it, though it appears he had a moment of 'inspiration'."

"Did you have anything to do with that?"

"Surprisingly, no. I do find it worrying that I can not make sense of what was written there."

"Is it possible that there is nothing to understand?"

"Possible, but unlikely. I am sure of the others involvement in this, thought I can't prove it yet."

"I do not like the looks of things if that's the case, and I have strong suspicions that there is at least one other party involved in this."

"That much is new, though not unsurprising. If you find out anything I would appreciate it if you let me know, though I doubt that will happen." With that Ganos left, leaving her to contemplate the mysteries she had found in peace. The fact that there was an unknown party filled her with dread and hope. Hope that this ridiculous system could be broken, and dread that it may be replaced by something worse.

_D-303 simulator, Area-51_

Colonel Lionel Pendergast looked out into the simulator through the one way glass that connected the room he was currently in to the simulator. The simulator was currently configured to resemble the CIC of the Prometheus line of ships. At the moment the German crew was going through their paces to familiarize themselves with how the Prometheus class operated. Their current simulation was based of the combat data brought back by the Kanata, Wu-Zetian and Yukikaze. It would prove invaluable once they finally got onto their ship.

Their commander was one Mirel Schinder, in the US air force she would be ranked as a Colonel. It didn't take him long to figure out why she had been selected for the role of commanding Germany's first starship. While she wouldn't be qualified as a genius, she was still smart and more importantly could think on the fly. That was one trait that was difficult to find, and extraordinarily useful.

He along with the commanders of the Kanata and the Bodskey were in the process of evaluating the whole crew in the simulator based on how they reacted to different situations. The British crew was set to go in after they were finished and then it was on to doing some simulations on how the new Daedalus class ships would preform. Though there wasn't much on them yet given that the Daedalus was no where near finished. He himself wouldn't be here for that as he was scheduled to depart with the Prometheus once the British crew was finished their run through.

He would be taking the Prometheus to Harvest with a load of mining equipment, construction materials, food and water, and a bunch of other bulk supplies that were difficult to send by stargate or Al'Kesh. He would then be picking up a bulk shipment of refined ores mined on harvest and bring them back to earth, it was a trip he had already made several times in the Prometheus. The trip itself would take roughly seven hours total, more if something happened. Though at this point the worst he was expecting was a delay in getting his ship loaded and unloaded.

Turning his attention back to the simulation, he observed how the crew reacted when their enemies showed up.

_Later, Prometheus, en route to Harvest_

The trip so far had been rather boring giving Lionel plenty of time to go over the logs from the simulations and give his opinions on how the two crews preformed. He was currently seated in his cabin behind the CIC at his desk going over several printouts of the simulations, they displayed a variety of information that had been converted to numerical form. Both crews had preformed well considering how much time they had spent training, at their current rates they would be ready to go when their ships were ready.

The trip from earth to harvest took a little over an hour to complete, however they had reduced their speed slightly to reduce the strain on the hyperdrive from the excess cargo that had been loaded. The Prometheus had been filled to the brim, every nook and cranny they could fit something into they had. They had even taken over the bomb bay and one of the hangars to fit more stuff in, if he tried to go at the Prometheus's normal speed it would strain the hyperdrive. While it wouldn't be much it would make maintenance a nightmare in the future.

He returned his attention to his list of recommendations and report. He continued on with it to the point where he was almost done when a jolt ran through the deck and into his desk. He was already out the door by the time the alarms went of. Being the commander meant his room was near to the CIC as it meant he could get there quickly in case of an emergency, like now. The gravity on the ship was kept at roughly dot three G, which allowed him to hop over the back of his chair and slide into the seat, something he wouldn't have been able to do at one G.

"Report."

"Minor damage to shields, no hull breaches found so far. All other systems are green."

"Any idea what happened?"

"No sir. Still looking into that, but whatever it was it didn't get through the shields."

"Alright, how long until we reach Harvest?"

"Eight minutes at our current speed and course."

"Maintain course and speed, I want a running check done of all systems, we'll do a full check of the systems once we reach Harvest. Have all crew memebers report to duty stations and have security to a full sweep of the ship." A hail of yes sirs answered him as the crew got to work, hopefully nothing had gone wrong, which was all to likely given the SGCs past experiences.

_Later, Harvest System_

The Prometheus finished it's deceleration in hyperspace before opening a hyperspace window inside the Harvest system, the sublight engines then activated killing most of the remaining speed. "All stations report in." When all systems came back green he ordered them to proceed to Harvest, but at the same time he couldn't shake the feeling that something was off. "Do we have Harvest command on the line."

"Yes, sir. Incident report along with all relevant data has been forwarded."

"Good. Have we synced up with their atomic clock?"

"Yes, no difference in time." Even that didn't put him at ease. "Permission to use docking bay for maintenance has been approved." They're own checks had turned up nothing wrong, but he wanted a more thorough check, after all something happened.

"Bring us in, we'll do the maintenance checks after we've unloaded." It would take a while do get the unloading done, as well as the maintenance, plenty of time to draft up a report to send to earth. He already had all the sensor readings at the time of the incident, those would be attached along with any comments he had to make. In the end their wasn't much to tell, if just plain because of the amount of time in which the incident took place, to how little actually happened because of it. But despite everything, he was still worried, the fact that nothing had actually gone wrong was putting him on edge, more so than if there was an actual problem. At least then he could act, rather than keep thinking about what might have gone wrong.

_Later_

The maintenance checks had come up clean, there was nothing wrong with the Prometheus that could be found. After earth had received that they had told him to finish his mission, afterwords they would do a more in-depth analysis of what might have happened. So the Prometheus was currently being loaded with the ore that she was going to drop off at earth.

He still didn't feel comfortable as it seemed that despite how bizarre the incident had been, everything seemed normal. At the moment though he was willing to let the people on earth do the thinking, as he had already run through every possible scenario he could think of, and each one of them had proven false. Every check they had run through had turned up nothing, with the exception of the hit to their shield during travel, there was no indication that anything had even happened. Maybe he was being paranoid over nothing. Then he remembered the briefs on what the SGC had encountered over the years, he was better of double checking everything.

Thanks goes out to Sdarian for pointing out several grammatical errors I had missed, along with the rest of my reviewers.


	19. Chapter 14-Tournament

_Chapter Fourteen, Tournament_

_IS Academy, Earth, June 2015_

Cassandra looked over the printout she had made of the Individual Tournament schedule, it listed all of the people participating along with the blocks they were in. While she couldn't read most of the names, due to how little she could actually read of kanji, she nonetheless could determine that she was in B-block, match number six. The tournament was set up with four blocks, each using a different arena, with sixty-four participants in each block, or thirty-two matches in the first round. It was then one on one fights, each round eliminated half of the participants until there was only one left at the end of the each block. After that the final four would do a round robin to determine who was the winner.

She was both worried and exited for the upcoming tournament, she was getting a chance to show off to the whole world. She was making her way over to the second arena where B block was taking place, she wouldn't be able to see the other contestants until she was in the arena. At least they could wait in the stands until the match before theirs, that was nice. So when she got to the arena she took a seat up in the benches, eventually she was joined by several of her friends, though she didn't spot Cecilia or Nizru. Cecilia she could understand as she most likely in another block, Nizru, she didn't even think the girl was participating. Getting comfortable she settled down to wait.

_Later_

She stood in one of the hangars of to the side of the arena, completely suited up. She was going through all of Blitz's systems as she waited the signal to go outside. So far she had yet to see anything wrong, though it was nice to double-check everything. And it had the added effect of calming her nerves. It still was nagging at her that she didn't know who she would be facing in the first round, or any round for that matter as she couldn't understand what was on the printout.

After what had felt like an eternity the signal came to head out into the arena. It was a simple matter to head out into the arena and float at the predesignated start point. It was then that she got her first look at her opponent, clad in a red IS unit sporting several points extending from the unit itself was Houki Shinonono. She remembered the girl herself from one of the papers she had read on IS units, the younger sister of Tabanae Shinonono herself, and from the looks of things sporting a custom made IS unit. She was willing to put good money on the unit itself being made by Tabanae, this wasn't going to be easy.

The countdown appeared on her HUD, along with a display of who people were betting on, she couldn't understand why she had been sent that. It turned out, only a handful of people thought she had any chance at winning, and she could probably name them all. It certainly didn't help her ego, still it would feel oh so much better when she did win. However this was most likely a IS unit built by Tabanae, it had at least two or three tricks up its sleeves, she would have to be careful.

The timer continued dropping down to zero. In the control booth Tabanae looked on with eager anticipation, this would be the first showing of the Akastubaki, and the true beginning of the fourth IS generation. Plus it would serve as a reminder as to who was the smartest person in the world.

In the stands, Carter sat amongst the people who had traveled from America with her. This match honestly worried her, as Tabanae's new IS unit would at the very least be capable of competing against the Blitz given the limiters that were in place. And add to the fact that Cassandra was fairly inexperienced, well the betting polls showed what people thought of the match-up. Still she had more experience with the Blitz than the other pilot had with their machine, hopefully it would be enough.

The timer reached zero and the buzzer went off indicating the start of the match. Her opponent summoned a pair of swords, so a close range fighter then, if she could keep some distance between them she should be fine. So she backed of while drawing out her rail rifle, during training she had discovered that while the three kilogram rail cannon hit hard it was also hard to hit anything with it. On the other hand while the rail rifle didn't hit as hard it was easier to hit things with, like a high speed IS unit.

Houki charged straight at her with both swords out to the side, she lined up her rifle and started firing while waiting for the most opportune moment to dodge. It never came as Houkis swung one of her swords unleashing a blast straight at her, she managed to avoid the worst of it but it still took a chunk out of her shield. That had been a surprise, so expect anything and everything from them, that most likely covers any thing they can do.

She dropped downwards to pick up speed before rising back up trading her speed for altitude. All the while keeping an eye on where Houki was. Turning so she was facing towards Houki while still climbing she reloaded her rifle before firing on Houki from above. The other girl managed to avoid most of the shots but the flashes that appeared on her suit showed that at least some of the rounds connected with the shield. Houki fired another one of her sword beams at her but this time she was expecting it and manged to get out-of-the-way.

She was surprised when a private line opened up from Houki, what was Houki looking for. "It seems you have some skill, but I'm not loosing this match." In response to Houki's comment she simply out some more rounds into Houki's shield, what kind of idiot talked to their opponent while fighting them.

She had to drop down and to the side when Houki charged at her, all the while she continued to chip away at Houki's shield. "You think you can win with those pinpricks." Actually she was fairly sure she could, as long as her ammunition held out, which wasn't guaranteed. She would have to be careful about that. "I've suffered for years, and now I have a chance to make it all up, I won't let you stand in my way."

Cassandra felt herself scowl, in response to Houki she fired of a few dozen grenades. "You've been pampered your entire life and you think you've suffered."

Houki used her other sword and sent out a shock-wave that destroyed the grenades, "what do you know of suffering, you lived your entire life with a loving family. You have no idea what I've gone through." The other sword came back around, it's beam striking her and draining a large portion of her shield. "I was separated from my family so I never had a chance at a normal life."

Anger flowed through her, she inserted a new clip into the rifle and fired at Houki. "Separated, that's all that happened to you, my family was murdered in front of me. You still had a chance to see them again, I didn't. And all you did was cry and complain, I moved on. Don't try to talk down to me about what you've lost, because you didn't lose anything. I was lucky to find a new family to take me in, and they helped me get past it. You, I bet you didn't even try to."

Houki launched upwards to get out of her line of fire, "don't speak as if you know me." There was anger in her words, but they were starting to lose the fire they had earlier. After a couple of seconds of acceleration a cloud briefly appeared around Houki, it dispersed after an instant leaving the sonic boom to travel outwards. She followed upwards, within seconds a small cloud exploded around the Blitz as she broke the sound barrier.

In the control booth Tabanae felt one side of her mouth rise up and her teeth become forced together while one of her eyebrows twitched. Chifuyu just looked over at her and smiled while she mouthed 'I told you so', Tabanae just looked away.

In the stands Carter let a smile go across her face as the people around her group looked on with awe. She just wished she could see Tabanae's face right now.

Cassandra was rabidly catching up to Houki, the raw power in the Ion engines easily overcoming the particle fuel boosters used by Houki. The moment she passed Houki she was facing the other pilot, and for a brief instant they were just facing each other. The expression on Houki's face was priceless, completely filled with disbelief, Carter one, Tabanae zero. And then the moment was over and she was flying past Houki, who was doing her best to try to keep up.

She kept going up to get more altitude so when she did go on the offence she would have plenty of altitude to trade for speed. At what she decided was a high enough altitude she began to slow down, her HUD also informed her that the air was beginning to thin out. Slowing down even further she took a moment to take in her surroundings. Houki was almost three kilometres beneath her, and had declined follow her further up. Looking down she could see the whole of the academy, along with a bunch of short thin white lines connecting it to the mainland over a small expanse of blue. To one side lay the jagged mountains of mainland Japan while to the other side was an endless expanse of blue that was the pacific ocean.

Looking at the edge of the ocean she could see a small curve of the planet's surface, while Carter had told her about the curvature, it was the first time actually seeing it for herself. She had slept during the plane ride over. She continued to take in the view for a few more moments before a beam shooting past her reminded her she still had a fight to win.

She shot downwards to where Houki was, quickly breaking the sound barrier on her way down. Her plan had been to hit Houki at high-speed with her foot, however Houki managed to move out-of-the-way. She was then forced to slow her descent lest she leave Houki to the higher ground. Just as she was beginning to ascend again Houki came at her from above with both of her swords. She waited until the last instant before reversing the direction of her engines dropping her upwards velocity to near zero. This caused Houki to overshoot, however Houki was still close enough for her to reach out and grab Houki by the leg. She then had to dodge the beam sabre that came out of the end of the leg.

Rotating her body she avoided the beam again and managed to get her other arm around one of Houki's arms. She then fired her engines upwards dragging Houki towards the ground with her, again she managed to break the sound barrier, though it took longer this time with Houki resisting her. But she had gravity and raw engine power behind her, so even with Houki's struggling she was still making progress downwards.

She then ran into the problem of finding the right arena, seeing as their altitude made finding theirs difficult, along with getting turned around. She eventually decided on the one without flashes of light coming from it and went full ahead to get there, all the while trying not to get hit by Houki's blades. Trying being the key word as Houki managed to get several smaller strikes in.

As they approached the ground the two of them tried to get the other on the bottom so that the other would absorb most of the impact on their shield. Given how they were falling neither one of them managed to keep the advantage for very long. As they approached the one hundred meter altitude mark, Cassandra gave up on trying to crash into the ground along with Houki. Instead she got the upper hand on Houki for an instant and after slamming a fist into Houki's shield in front of the other girls face, she pushed of upwards while using her engines at full power to slow her descent.

She still hit the ground hard, but she hoped the little bit of extra speed she gave Houki would mean the other girl hit the ground harder. She hit feet first and the impact caused her teeth to slam together, somehow she managed to avoid biting her tongue, thankfully the inertial dampeners prevented her from feeling most of the impact. After she hit the ground a little alarm brought to her attention that she only had thirty-one shield energy remaining, and given that the buzzer didn't go off Houki was still in the fight. She would have to be careful with this little shield energy, at the very least Houki couldn't have that much left either, could she?

Houki was still pulling herself up from where she had crashed. Taking advantage of the fact that she had recovered faster, Cassandra drew out her rail-rifle. She opened fire on where Houki was, only for Houki do dodge to one side causing the first few rounds to miss. Houki then came straight at her not bothering to dodge, this let Cassandra get in hits with her rifle, but she was running out of rounds in her magazine and didn't think she would have time to reload.

Houki closed the gap as her ammunition counter got closer to zero, she began drawing out her cannon while backing up. The counter hit ten, her cannon was in her hand but pointing at the ground, nine, she began to raise the cannon. Eight, Houki began raising her sword to strike, seven, her cannon wouldn't make it up in time. Six, a blue spark on Houki's IS shield appeared as the shield stopped the round. Five, her foot went down sending up a small cloud of dust, four, Houki swung her blade aiming for her chest. Three, her cannon was still too low to be of any use, two another spark erupted on Houki's shield, she wouldn't make it. One, Houki's blade was almost to her chest, it's edge appeared a faint blue-silver from the reflected light. Zero, her cannon was almost into a firing position and Houki's blade was mere centimeters from her shield.

The blaring of the buzzer signalled the end of the match, Houki's balde was toughing her shield while her cannon was pointing at Houki's foot. Her ammo counter on the rifle read zero, while her shield meter read twenty-six, she had won, and from the looks of things only just. They backed away from each while Houki just started at her, the sheer disbelief in her face was evident.

"How, this was built by Shinonono Tabanae herself, how, just how did you beat it." She was in the process of storing her weapons when Houki asked the question.

"You're Tabanae's sister correct."

"Yes, her biological sister at least."

"And there's your problem, this unit" she placed her hand across her chest" was built by someone I cherish. It was built by a member of my family, I may not actually be related to them but they are my family. Your sister went to all the trouble of building you a high end IS, and you still don't accept her, that is the real difference between us." That and a lot of luck, but she was feeling a little bad-ass at the moment, and wanted to keep going. "I think your sister cares for you, and yet you still talk about her like that."

Houki fell to her knees. "I.. How could I have been so blind and stupid." Tears were running down her face. "The things I said to her, and even after all that she still went out of her way for me. Why was I so blind and stupid." Houki had dissolved into tears and sobbing. Great now she had to deal with someone having a break down, if she had know it would come to this she would have just kept her mouth shut. But no she had to go on trying to make herself seem awesome. Some-days she could be really dumb.

_Later, Dorm roof_

She was sort of hiding on the top of the dorm roof after having had her supper, the sun was going down over the mainland painting the sky a variety of hues. She had more or less been the talk of the school after she beat Houki, though she suspected it had more to do with the fact that she had beaten a IS unit built by Tabanae than anything else. Still it was nice to get away from everyone for a bit. Really people could obsess over the stupidest things.

She was so lost in her thoughts that she failed to notice someone approach until they were right beside her. "Enjoying the view." She nearly bolted until she turned to see Ichka standing beside her leaning on the railing.

"Sorry you just startled me."

"Trying to get away from all your new fans."

"Sort of, what brings you up here anyways?"

"Actually I was looking for you." Her eyes immediately narrowed with suspicion. "I wanted to thank you for helping Houki." When had she helped Houki? If she remembered correctly she had beaten Houki.. Oh. "I've been trying to think of a way to make her let go of her hatred for her sister, but couldn't find a way to do it. So thank you for convincing her to let it go, it was kind of painful to watch as she wallowed in it."

"I didn't really do anything. Hell I thought I broke her completely."

"True, but maybe that's what she needed. She was always extremely headstrong, once she got something in her head it stuck. And being Tabanae's sister nobody wanted to try to correct her, and well she never did listen to me."

"Why did she hate Tabanae so much anyways?"

"After the IS was unveiled she was moved 'for her own protection', which meant she had to miss a tournament she was really looking forwards to. She then came to the conclusion that her sister was responsible for it, which was partially true, and she then just carried on from there. Ever since we were reunited here I've been trying to come up with a way to get her to let her hatred go."

"You like Houki don't you."

"A bit, though I promised myself a while back that I wouldn't start any serious relationships until after I graduated high-school." She had to giggle at that. "Though I never expected to end up here, if I can survive this school without breaking my oath I'll be able to tackle anything life throws at me." She had to smile at the last part. "What about you anyone you're interested in?"

She felt her face heat up, "are you asking me out. I... I thought you wanted to go without a serious relationship during your time here."

It was Ichika's turn to laugh, "no. I just saw you the other day hanging out with a bunch of older people, they you're relatives?"

"Sort of, though it's not like any of us are related by blood or anything."

"I see. So what about the young guy that was with you."

"Who, John. I, uhh, yeah. I've sorta have this girlhood crush on him, it kinda embarrassing."

"Well, he has the looks at least."

She gave him a quizzical look. "So I'm surprised you aren't hanging around that other guy, what his name the french one."

"Charles." So that's his name, she would have to try to remember that.

"Yeah, Charles, I'm surprised your not hanging around with him."

"He kinda got dragged of by Laura, he probably wouldn't want me interrupting." She shook her head in bemusement, some people. "Anyways, I made it past the first round like you did."

"I saw, we're in the same block, so if we keep on winning..."

"We'll eventually face each other. If we both win our next two matches we will face each other, looks to be happening tomorrow given that they finished the first round today. Though people were really looking forwards to a match between me and Houki, the first Male IS pilot against the sister of Shinonono Tabanae herself. Though guess people will have to wait for that one."

"They almost didn't have to, if I would have had one less round in my magazine she would have won."

"True."

They stood in silence for a few moments. "I just wonder why your telling me all this?"

"Because I consider you a friend." She couldn't think of anything to say to that. Truth be told she didn't really have any friends here. Of the people she was actually close to, Cecilia and Nizru had until recently been trying to get into her pants, and Sasha had the attention span of a hyper puppy.

She ended up with a one word reply, "thanks."

"For what?"

"For just being my friend."

_Next day, Second Arena_

She waited in of the hangars attached to the second arena for Ichika's match to end, it was still before morning though it was getting close to lunch. She would be participating in the third match of the day, against some silver-haired eye-patch wearing girl who she couldn't be bothered remembering the name of. Who was definitely not Sasha, thought the two could easily be mistaken for each other if not for the whole eye-patch thing. And because she couldn't read kanji she couldn't figure out her name.

Eventually the match ended and the two of them were let out into the arena. It was the second time Cassandra had seen her opponents machine, due to the way the tournament was set up she could get a look at her next opponents machine during the round before they faced. Thus she knew that her opponents main weapon was a shoulder mounted cannon, high-powered but limited to firing forwards, her opponent also had a bunch of wires that they could use to trip up an opponent. She would have to look out for those. Finally there was the forward defence, she wasn't sure what it was exactly but it blocked everything coming in from the front.

She also had the advantage that her opponent hadn't seen her perform in the tournament yesterday, which meant she would have an advantage there. Though they could have just watched the replays, but she was willing to bet that they hadn't. Besides seeing it live was a much better way to gather information.

"So you actually showed up. I'm surprised your IS hasn't caught fire already, piece of American trash, creators of the Ronson Lighter." She didn't get it, at all.

"If your going to try to insult me at least have the insults make sense. If you don't you only look like an idiot."

"Evidently I'm talking to an uneducated person, really your nation's education system could use some serious work. Don't they teach you any history at all."

"They did, I just didn't think any of it was important." Besides, half of it was caused by the Goa'uld anyways.

"How! History is the lifeblood of a nation, without it your nation is nothing, to remain ignorant of history is to deny your past." She felt herself scowl, her past was something she didn't like bringing up.

"Why don't you just shut up, it would make this oh so much nicer."

"So you admit your own ignorance."

"Only if it'll shut you up."

"Gah, your useless, anyways there is only one way to end this. Prepare yourself for you face the pinnacle of German engineering, Schwarzer Regen. Successor to the King Tiger."

"Yeah, whatever." The face her opponent made was priceless.

The buzzer went signalling the start of the match. The cannon immediately fired forcing her to duck downwards, the hail of rail-rifle rounds she sent back were predictably stopped in front of her opponent. She flew to the right to avoid another cannon-shot, she was also seeing if she could get around to her opponents rear. But given the speed at which her opponent could turn it didn't appear possible, and getting to close would get her tied up.

So instead she fired several grenades past her opponent, the initial look of confusion on her opponents face was quickly replaced by horror when the grenades detonated. When she tried it again her opponent shot straight upwards to get out of the blast radius. Still it worked once, and she knew it could hurt her opponent, now she just needed to time it so that they didn't see it coming and got out-of-the-way.

She sent several bursts of rail-rifle rounds at her opponent, more to keep them at a distance and on the defensive than anything else, while she came up with a semi-coherent plan. After a half-minute or so she had an idea she wanted to try. Charging in to just outside of what she judged to be the wires maximum range, she stopped before firing her rifle in combination with firing several grenades to just behind her opponent. She didn't expect one of the wires to whip out and wrap itself around her wrist, before she got thrown around into the explosions of her own grenades.

Well, that was embarrassing. And now she was trapped as her opponent had her wrist binded. And she was being flung around by her wrist, which was painful and embarrassing. So she was determined to try to do something about it. Firing her engines to choose her direction she dropped down while dragging her opponent down with her. Rather than releasing the wire they began to real it in, which gave her a perfect opportunity to punch them in the face. Or rather the shield in front of their face, still it did cause her opponent to flinch back.

Which incidentally gave her enough time to get several grenades behind them, she made sure to give them a wave as she back away. Unfortunately she was still tethered to them via the wire which meant when her enraged opponent came back to their senses they had a ready target. They quickly bound her with several additional wires while they brought their cannon to bear on her, making it difficult for her to move at all.

Even so it they still couldn't restrain her engines, which she used to propel the two of them to the ground. And being tied to her like this meant her opponent had no choice but to go down with her, or disengage the wires. They evidently stuck with going with her, she kept the lead right up until she was just above the ground, then using the thrust from her engines she spun, which caused her opponent to slam into the ground, hard.

Finally the wires released allowing her to put some distance between them. Right now she was feeling rather good about her chances of victory, as she had dealt some serious damage to her opponent. Though evidently they were still in the game, given the lack of a buzzer signalling the end of the match.

Her opponent was currently picking themselves back up from where they were slammed into the ground. She didn't give them the chance to get back up, drawing out her three kilogram rail-cannon she began putting rounds downrange at her opponent. The first round struck them square in the chest nearly depleting their remaining shield, the second round hit their wing, breaking through their shield and knocking them off-balance. The buzzer went off a second later signalling the end of the match.

The signal to return to the hangars went up next so she lifted off and floated over and into the hangar. If she won one more she had a fifty-fifty chance of going up against Ichika, and given that the her next opponent would be the winner of the next match she would be able to see them in action. Which gave her an edge.

Quickly heading back to the hangar, she stored Blitz before heading to the change rooms for a quick shower and change of clothes. When she got back the match had already started, but they weren't doing much more than circling each other at this point and exchanging the occasional shot. She recognized the student council president Tatenashi, and the Canadian representative candidate, her confidence in winning the next match plummeted. Both of them were highly skilled, and in the case of the latter had already beaten her, no matter who won this match, her next one would be difficult.

Tatenashi was using a lance to her opponents cannon, she recognized it as the one they had used in her previous fight with them. Tatenashi levelled her lance and shot of a stream of rounds at her opponent, but given the range they were easily evaded. Her opponent countered with a trio of shots from their cannon, which again were evaded due to the range at which they were engaging.

They continued like this for another few minutes, with neither one of them willing to get any closer and actually begin the fight. At the moment both of them were still at full shield capacity. She had a feeling this would take some time.

Then without warning they charged each other. Tatenashi struck out with her lance only to have it blocked by her opponents, axe? She was expecting the hammer that had been used against her. After striking and parting they both turned around and opened up with their ranged weapons. She couldn't tell how many rounds actually hit, but from watching the displays she could immediately tell that Tatenashi came off worse from their exchange. That cannon simply could hit harder than the machine gun built into Tatenashi's lance. Or having your weapon batted away because it's also a melee weapon, that certainly didn't help.

Tatenashi backed while fring at her opponent, she obviously realized that engaging in a close range slugging match was suicide. So she backed off and engaged at range, however it quickly became clear to Cassandra that that wasn't to Tatenashi's advantage. As her opponent drew out a long rifle and began accurately peppering Tatenashi from range.

Suddenly Tatenashis stopped taking hits even though her opponent kept firing for a little while longer, before stopping. It took Cassandra a moment to realize why, in between Tatenashi and her opponent was a wall of water defying physics, and given the smile on Tatenashis's face it was most likely her doing.

Her opponent just waited there for a few moments before launching a barrage of grenades at Tatenashi. It was easy to figure out that they were trying to blow the water away, though she suspected it wouldn't work. The grenades became trapped in the water before they exploded, with less force than she remembered them having, most likely dampened by the water.

An instant later the whole inside of the stadium went bright white-yellow for an instant before dimming. It took Cassandra's eyes a moment to readjust, what had that been. Then she remembered what Carter had said was inside the grenades the SGC used, and how alkali metals reacted with water, then add naquadah into the mix for a bigger explosion. Well it had certainly gotten rid of the water.

Elsewhere in the stands Rodney McKay received a private line from his IS unit in the arena, frankly he wasn't surprised. That had been a spectacular blast, he also made a mental note to pass on to the generals about their grenades and water.

"Query, is their alkali metal in the grenades."

"Yes."

"Query, is it possible to fire only the alkali metal."

"No."

"Pity." And the line went dead. He really missed her carefree attitude, she really creeped him out when she was serious as opposed to her regular go happiness.

Tatenashi's face was on of absolute surprise, she had clearly not been expecting that explosion, nor apparently did anyone else for that matter. Her opponent clearly hadn't expected the results either as they waited for almost thirty seconds before doing anything. Which gave Tatenashi enough time to recover to face what they did do.

For some reason only fathomable to the Canadian representative, she charged in with her axe. Tatenashis managed to get a short burst off with her lance before she was forced to block the blow with it. Her opponent quickly sent her lance to the side and got a good hit in before she could bring it back to block. She back up as she dismissed the lance and summoned something that looked like a whip to Cassandra, she had to raise an eyebrow at that one.

The whip caught her opponent's wrist, only to have history repeat itself as Tatenashi received a fist to the shield in front of her face. It seemed people who had chain like weapons seemed to think that just because you got a hold on your opponent that you can do whatever you want. Doesn't work like that, especially if your opponent's stronger than you are, she had just proven that last match, though Tatenashi didn't get to see that.

Tatenashi quickly dismissed her whip and redrew her lance, only to have it knocked out of her hands by her opponent's axe. It disappeared in a flash of light before reappearing back in Tatenashi's hand, several moments to late as her opponent had brought out her cannon and fired off a trio of shots into Tatenashi at point-blank range. While it didn't take Tatenashi out, it did almost deplete her shield, looking up at the display she also noted that her opponent was also losing shield points at a steady rate without getting hit. That was curious.

They backed away from each other for a moment before Tatenahi charged with her lance outstretched. She made it several steps before she collapsed to the ground, her lance going into the ground to hold her partially up and her free hand going to her mouth. Her opponent drew out another cannon rather than reloading their current one and advanced on Tatenashi.

_Control room_

"Call the match." She had warned Tatenashi that this would happen, but the stubborn girl had insisted on participating in the tournament. And now she was paying the price, her injury still hadn't fully recovered.

"But they both still have shield energy."

"Call it, Tatenashi sill just hurt herself worse if this continues."

"Alright." The buzzer went of a second later, and not a moment to soon in her opinion, given how things were in the arena.

_Stands_

The Canadian representative leveled their cannon at Tatenashi, if Cassandra guessed correctly about which cannon it was Tatenashi would be gone if it hit. Just as the shot was lined up the buzzer went off signalling the end of match. Cassandra looked up in confusion as both participants still had shield energy, judging from the reactions around her she wasn't the only one who was confused. Still, it probably saved Tatenashi's life.

_Control Room_

Chifuyu had half expected them to fire anyways, but she was content when they dismissed their cannon. "Chifuyu, who do we say won?"

"Tatenashi's in no condition to participate any further, so..."

"Alright."

Now for the difficult part and person, Tatenashi, a line from the girl in question opened up. "Why did you call the match, I had them."

"No you didn't. They had over three-hundred shield points left and you were completely immobile, they were about to win anyways." Best not to mention that they actually had just under four hundred shield points. "Besides, that shot would have knocked out your shield and damaged the IS unit. I don't think Russia would like having to repair their prototype anymore than they have to, especially if it can be avoided."

"But..."

"No buts, you're injured and you lost the fight. End of discussion. You will be heading to the medical wing and staying there, even if I have to tie you down myself. Understood."

"Yes."

"Good, now..."

_Few hours later, Hangar_

Cassandra was almost a nervous wreck as she waited in the hangar for the signal to head out. Not only was she going against someone she had already lost to, but that person had also beaten the best IS pilot in the whole school. About the only advantage she had was a slightly better idea of what they were capable of, which most likely entirely useless. She would have to rely on her own skill and Carters craftwomanship, and considering what happened last time.

She suppressed the negative thoughts, that had been then, she didn't have the practical experience then that she did now. This would be a different fight then the last one, and she also wasn't in a rush so she could focus on her opponent this time. All she had to do was give it her best shot and she would come out on top. And if she won she had the possibility of going up against Ichika, if he won the current match.

After what seemed like forever she was allowed out into the arena. She sped out and into the starting spot with her opponent facing her. This wasn't like the last time they fought, were she had been taken by surprise, and beaten, this time it was a straight up fight. They wouldn't get in the first blow via a blindside attack.

Suddenly a line form the other pilot opened up, "you may return to the hangar at any time to end the match. I will not follow you if you do."

"Back at you, I won't go down easily like last time. This time I will win."

When no reply came she let herself smile, and watched the countdown. "You truly have no idea do you." Huh, she couldn't think of anything to say to that. "It is evident you intend to go through with this, I feel no sympathy for you. You were warned."

"Don't think you'll get it all your way like last time."

"I see, prepare yourself then, for I will not be holding back, unlike last time." The buzzer went off starting the match. Her opponent drew out her axe and cannon and immediately fired a trio of shots at her. Only one struck home.

She ducked down and drew out her rifle, peppering her opponent with rounds, this forced her opponent to back off. "I see you've learned from our last encounter." She hadn't realized the line was still open.

"As I said, you won't be having it all your way this time." She continued to fire at her opponent, stopping only to load a new magazine. "I'm better than I was then."

"But are you good enough now." She was forced on the defensive as four separate streams of fire came at her. Idiot was dual wielding rifles, she would just have to wait until they were reloading to attack. It wasn't long until a break in the fire came, at which point she charged in rifle blazing.

Only to be met with high velocity steel shards, looks like they weren't bothering to reload the weapons, instead it looked like they were just swapping them out for fresh ones. She would have to wait until they ran out of rifles, in the meantime she could take advantage of her faster acceleration to get close to them. Her manoeuvring had at least stopped them from using their wing mounts as they were forced to use the wings to keep pace with her.

Her chance came when the magazines of her opponent ran dry and she was a good hundred meters above them. She dived down at them going at her highest possible acceleration, she grasped her opponents arms, moving them so that they blocked the line of fire from the wings. She then pushed them both towards the ground using her thrust advantage to overpower her opponent.

The axe hitting the shield in front of her helmet took her completely by surprise. It knocked her back, making her lose her grip on her opponents arms. Which allowed them to be moved out of the way so that the wing mounts could target her. She dived down followed by a hail of fire.

She was forced to pull out of her dive fairly quickly as the ground rushed up to meet her, her opponent had followed her down as well, hovering just above the ground. They fired at her and she dodged to the side. The fire slackened of for a second as their current magazines emptied and she rushed in rifle blazing and combat knife drawn. A quick check of her HUD showed her to have over six hundred shield points, more than enough to deal with whatever they tried as she closed in. There was some light near their hands as she closed in.

The thunder crack beside her head was quickly followed by the buzzer going off signalling the end of the match. She managed to get her feet on the ground so she could use them and her remaining wing to kill her remaining momentum. Her shield was at zero and her wing was completely greyed out on her HUD, it wasn't merely damaged, it was gone. Once she had fully stopped she stared straight ahead for a few moments before collapsing to her knees. Her weapons disappearing in motes of light. Her opponent brought their cannon to an upright position, it must have at least doubled their height.

She had spent the past several weeks practising every chance she got, she must have spent dozens, maybe hundreds of hours flying Blitz. She had tirelessly learned the in's and outs of how Blitz handles and what her weaknesses were, and where she had an advantage. She had learned how her various weapons handled and which one was best for which situation. She had even gone so far as to learn how the various systems worked, and how far she could push them, Carter had truly outdone herself with the Blitz.

All if it had been rendered useless by a single shot. She could feel moisture running down her cheeks, was she really crying. All her work had been rendered useless in an instant.

"I warned you. You did not heed me and this is the result."

"Why."

"Why what."

"Why can you win so easily, why does it seem that no matter what I do you are still there. Why does it seem that no matter what I do nothing changes."

"Nothing chances. Do you truly believe that, because if you do get out of that machine and return home. You are not fit to pilot an IS."

She would not give up what she had, Carter, mom and every one else believed in her. That's why she had been given Blitz in the first place. And she wouldn't give it because some bitch told her to. Mustering all her defiance, "no. Don't you tell me what to do. I will beat you no matter how many tries it takes."

Their mask hid the smile that formed on their face. "Very well, but do not think that it will be easy for we are on completely different levels. You should be prepared for plenty of disappointment."

Standing back up and pointing one of her armoured fingers at them, "don't lecture me. When I'm done I'll rip you out of that suit and flay your ass from the chappa to the forest." Hankain insults were gloriously colourful. They dismissed their cannon before tacking several long steps back and to the side, running... Her face went red when she realized what she had said, mom was going to have several things to say to her when she found out. Best not to let her find out.

_Control room_

Tabanae could barely believe what she had seen. That shot had simply torn through the IS, and then impacted the arena shields hard enough to be noted. That wasn't even counting the fact that it had gone through more shield points than most current IS had. Actually there was only five current IS units that could survive a single shot from it going by how much damage it actually did. Which still wasn't counting the hitting power that had been expended on the wing and the arena shield. That could add up to a hefty total.

Dr. Rodney McKay, someone she was aware of but had ignored because she didn't view him as an actual threat to her standing as the best IS creator in the world. Yesterday Carter had shown her that a good pilot was just as important than a good machine. And now McKay had shown that didn't even matter if your unit had a weapon that could knock out your opponents in one shot.

She left the room to go track him down, evidently he was someone she should be paying some attention to.

_Stands_

Carter had gotten up from her seat and was currently looking for Rodney, she had some very pointed questions for him. First off being what in the hell he had been thinking when designing that weapon, and second what would it take for her to get the plans for it. And after all that was done she had to build a new wing for Blitz, seeing as the last one got blown off.

Last she had checked he had been nearby, it still took her a few moments to find him. And even then only after Jolinar had pointed him out. She remained quiet while the symbiote chuckled. He had left his seat and was heading out of the stands, probably going to get something to eat.

Approaching him from behind, "McKay."

He turned around at the sound of his name, "oh hello Carter. Willing to acknowledge my genius now. By my count that's the second time the Aile has beaten the Blitz."

"Just what in the name of time were you thinking."

"What do you mean?" They stared at each other for a few moments before his eyes lit up. "You're referring to the one-fifty-two anti Al'Kesh rail cannon aren't you. Nice little gun isn't it, right now it's only firing solid steel shots but we got some special penetrator rounds that can punch a hole into a fully shielded Al'Kesh in a single hit." She just stared at him. "Oh you're mad that it overshadowed your creation aren't you. And now you want to ask me how you can get some of your own, well sorry to inform you but I'm not the one to ask for them. Classified military hardware and all."

"That was just shown to the entire world, and is currently in the hands of a high-school student. And they still consider it classified?"

"Still classified." She threw up her arms and turned away while doing the best to ignore Jolinar's laughter. "Hey I don't make the rules, I just bend them a bit every now and again." She had to stifle her own laugh at that.

It was amazing what a simple change in clothing and a wig can do for one's ability to blend in, it had allowed her to move through the stands without drawing attention to herself. She had first found Carter then followed her until she had come across Mckay as well. She had then listened in on their conversation, and while she considered herself proficient in English she only ended catching about two out of every three words. However even she could get that 'Al'Kesh' wasn't English, and that caught her interest. She had no idea what it was but whatever required that kind of firepower to be brought down in one shot wasn't something to scoff at.

Carter turned and headed her way forcing her to duck into a doorway lest she be discovered. The biggest problem now was that Ichika was going to face the Canadian representative next round, and the very real possibility that he might die.

_Next Round_

Ichika floated nervously inside the arena, though he had won his previous three matches his current opponent made him nervous. It was the way in which they had won their last match that made him nervous. That hit had caused more damage then he had shield points, one hit from that and he was a goner. He honestly considered forfeiting the match, but he didn't know if they would accept. And add to that his opponent seemed like the silent type.

So he was quite surprised when the line opened up, "do you wish to win this match."

Of course he wanted to, he just didn't think he could, "yes."

"Then I forfeit." Really, just like that, though even though he would win the match, it still wouldn't feel right.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why are you forfeiting?"

"I do not intend to win this tournament, and I have already accomplished all that I set out to do."

"So just like that you're forfeiting, I won't accept it." The buzzer went off but the two of them ignored it. "If I win against you like this it won't feel like I actually won. Maybe it just some guy thing but I don't want to win against you by having you forfeit, even if I will lose I want a real fight. I hope you can understand that at least."

"No I understand. If you are insistent on going through with this," she drew out her long barreled cannon, "then I shall oblige you."

He drew out Yukihira, "sudden death then." She merely nodded, he waited a second before charging, while she raised her cannon.

_Later_

Cassandra watched as Ludmilia walked down from the podium with the Individual Tournament cup resting on her head. The other three block winners were still up there, and of them she recognized Nizru of all people coming in third place. Apparently the girl had gotten her own personal IS courtesy of one Rodney McKay, and now she idolized him somewhat, she still wasn't sure how she felt about that.

Second place went to some third year student. And in fourth place was one Carmen Mariengnez, the representative candidate for Spain, a first year too, which meant that three-quarters of the winners were first years. That had started some interesting conversations amongst the guests who had been watching the tournament.

It seemed many people were disappointed that Ichika, Houki or Tatenashi hadn't made it to the final four, seeing as at least on was expected to make it. Well they had all been in the same block so it was hardly surprising, as at most only one could make it, funnily enough they hadn't even faced each other in the tournament. She had eliminated Houki in the first round while the other two had lost in later rounds, and of course she had been eliminated in the third round as well.

Which reminded her that she was without an IS for a little bit as Carter fixed the Blitz from the damage it had suffered during her last fight. It was now being shipped back to the US for repairs, and she would only get it back after the repairs were complete. She had no clue as to when it would be shipped back. She still didn't feel as if she had actually lost, she had fought well and was about to get some good hits in when they had taken her down. They hadn't whittled down her shield points then finished her off, they instead used a weapon so powerful she was fairly certain there was a rule against using weapons like that.

Sometimes this world doesn't act like you expect it.


	20. Chapter 15-Beginnings of Change

_Chapter Fifteen, Beginnings of Change  
_

_Center for HomeWorld Defence, Earth, July 2015_

General George Hammond climbed the stairs in the recently christened Center for HomeWorld Defence located just outside of central Washington DC. It was a multinational endeavour with each of the participating countries having their respective offices inside the building. He was currently heading to what was to be the first meeting held inside the building itself rather than at the pentagon, which had been the venue for such meetings for the past few months.

The subject that would mark the start of HomeWorld Defence, whatever had happened to the Prometheus in transit to Harvest. The Prometheus herself was now sitting in the Area Fifty-One hangar with every piece of the ship being looked over, just to rule out mechanical problems and to confirm that no damage was sustained. Carter was on her way back from Japan at the moment now, so he would be able to give her the problem to see what Carter and Jolinar made of it. The Tok'ra symbiote had proven useful over the past several years, and if Dr. Lee was to believed had cut several years of the development and deployment of the Prometheus class ships.

And all it had taken was some faith from the Canadians, and one pissed of Klorel for the SGC to give Jolinar a chance. And it had payed of in dividends, with the entire Goa'uld technology base at their fingertips the SGC had been able to make great strides in building defences for earth. That it had also given them an in with the most expansive intelligence network in the galaxy had just been icing on the cake. And all it had cost them was the use of Carter in the field. Small price to pay for what they had gained in return. He would however never hear O'Neill admit as such.

Opening the door to the meeting room he was greeted by a fairly plain meeting room that would not have looked out of place at any business. The room was dominated by a simple wooden table with office chairs surrounding it. At the far end of the room was a roll down screen, and looking up he spotted an overhead projector in the ceiling. A desk with a computer sitting on top of it took one up one of the far corners of the room. Plain and drab, hardly what you expected when the fate of the world was most likely going to be discussed in this very room. Most likely more than once as well.

He took his seat, which conveniently had a name plate with his name on it in front of it. At least no one would be wondering where they were supposed to sit, and there was no excuse for not knowing someone's name. He set his note-case down in front of him still closed and waited for the rest of the participants for today's meeting. The rest of the military personnel and politicians entered the room in one's and two's, after several minutes they had all arrived and a pair of MPs came and shut the doors.

Major Davis stood up from where he sat at the end of table by the roll down screen. He cleared his throat before speaking, "I believe you have all received the preliminary report concerning the recent incident involving the Prometheus. Here is what we know for sure, during the supply trip to Harvest, roughly ten minutes out from Harvest the Prometheus's shields repelled something. There was a jolt sent throughout the ship coinciding with a slight drop in shield integrity."

"The Prometheus managed to make it to Harvest dockyard where she unloaded her cargo and proceeded to do a full inspection of the ship. No hull breaches or other abnormalities where found in any of the ships systems. The return trip to earth was completely uneventful. Since her return we have been doing a full inspection of the ship, and have yet to find any abnormalities, we are still looking over the ship as well as doing some maintenance while she's in dock. Any questions?"

One of the men across the table proposed one. "Do we have any idea what the Prometheus encountered?"

"At the moment, no. Though when Dr. Carter returns we will be giving her all our current information on the issue to see what she and Jolinar make of it."

"You would trust the Tok'ra on this?"

"With respect sir, the Tok'ra have a lot more experience with hyperspace travel than we do, we will also be asking the Asgard as well. But Jolinar will be back by the end of the week, and we don't know when the Asgard will be stopping by next. And the hyperdrives we're using are a lot closer to Goa'uld ones than those used by the Asgard, so the Tok'ra are the logical place to start. Any other questions?"

"We're going to be sharing information about our fleet to the Tok'ra, that seems a little to trusting of them given how easily they have been infiltrated in the past."

"The Tok'ra are already aware that we have our own ships, and we will only be showing this information to Dr. Carter, who worked on and helped create most of the systems. If it hadn't been for her and Jolinar's help we would not have been able to complete the Prometheus and her sister ships in the time we did complete them in."

"Very well then."

"What will we do if Dr. Carter is unable to provide us with the answers we seek?"

"We will put it to the Asgard to see if they have anything, if they don't our current plan is to be on the lookout for more incidents such as this. If more are encountered a scientific survey can be preformed, if no more are encountered then it will be classified as a one off event. With the amount of damage to the Prometheus being non existent we are lifting the restriction on travel for our ships." There was a shifting of papers as the first item was put behind them. "Now, there have been several suggestions for what should be the standard procedure in case this or something similar should happen again. The suggestions were in the briefing you all received."

A British man sitting several seats down from him spoke up, "I believe we should stick to an old British saying, 'Keep calm and Carry on'. It seems to fit the situation perfectly." He along several others present the man an odd look. "It should really be our moto anyways." He couldn't tell if they were joking or serious.

Deciding to get the conversation moving again, "I do believe he does bring up the point that we have contingencies for nearly every situation but one. We have no plan for when things go right, or remain unchanged after an odd situation happens."

"With due respect sir, we haven't needed such a contingency before. Nothing has ever stayed the same after an unusual incident."

"And that is why I'm suggesting we implement one." Several nods of agreement and amusement occurred around the table along with some mutterings about the crazy adventures of the SGC.

"Alright then, moving on to the next item on the agenda. With the recent individual tournament at the IS Academy, several countries have expressed interest in the IS units developed with the Stargate Program. All four third generation units have drawn the eyes of the worlds media, already very pointed questions have started being asked."

"I'm sure stating that any questions concerning the hardware used by the units can be shot down by simply stating that it's classified military hardware. Though if western media wasn't so persistent on clarity it wouldn't be an issue." That had always been one of the big sticking points Russia had with United States, they didn't like the ever present inquisitive media. Still having had to deal with media idiots several times he understood where the Russian was coming from.

"That is the current plan, though it is unknown how long before people start pushing for answers regardless. Then there is Tabanae, we all know she won't take no for an answer, and from our initial reports the units caught her eye."

The German representative put forward a sugestion. "Has anyone considered that it may be in our best interests to offer up the information if she is willing to work with us."

It was the Japaneses representative turn to reply. "I don't think that will work, without any way of stopping her from going to the media the Stargate program will be on the news shortly after she finds out about it. And she isn't exactly someone who we can simply discredit. People will take notice, and people will listen. If we wish to keep the program secret telling her is the last thing we want to do."

"I suppose another question, is going public at the moment or in the near future a possibility." This time it was the Chinese representative who spoke up, surprising just about everyone in the room with his proposal.

"Near term is a definite no for doing disclosure on our terms. One we don't have enough countries on board, two our position in the galactic community is precarious at best, and three at the moment we don't have enough to offer the public that would stave off complete chaos. However we do have some plans for disclosure in the event of an emergency, though those are for an emergency and involve several contingency's we don't wish to use unless we have to."

Davis continued. "That being said, disclosure is still on the table and we should start making plans for when it does happen. There are several prerequisites the SGC has outlined as being necessary for disclosure. The first, having sufficient defences to defend earth in the event of an attack, mainly this involves sufficient fleet assets to counter anything that a single, or even a coalition of System Lords can reasonably send at us. We put that as the limit as there is no way we can hope to take on the entire fleet of the Goa'uld empire in a straight up fight, they are simply to large, and can deploy far to many vessels for us to compete against."

"Second, having technologies ready for dissemination to the general public that would serve to ease them into a post disclosure world. This would mainly include civilian technologies. It would also require having several companies ready to supply the technology in whatever form it comes in. Third, having built up earths infrastructure to be able to take advantage of the technologies we will be disseminating. This also includes preparing manufacturing plants where the newly introduced technology can be built."

"And finally fourth, having the majority of the industrialized nations on earth participating in the program. This is to insure that no one nation feels left out when disclosure happens, the remaining nations, if there are any, can be included after the fact. This will also let each individual nation deal with the after affects of disclosure inside their own borders as well as being prepared ahead of time."

"So we're just leaving the non developed nations out of this, that seems rather harsh."

"It may be, but we are talking about countries which more often then not are barely able to support themselves. And there are some countries which I believe non of us would like to see have access to the kind of capabilities we have at our disposal right now. The first that comes to mind would be North Korea, I think we can all agree on that." All around the table heads bobbed in agreement. "It should also be noted that these ideas are only a start that the SGC came up with, it was intended as a starting point for policies surrounding disclosure. When it was originally created it was understood that it would be amended in the future as the situation on earth and in the galaxy changed."

"Well I for one can't think of any changes to make to it at this hour, though I will be bringing it before my government to see what they think of it. Though I do wonder what made you create it in the first place."

Davis was about to answer when he raised his hand stopping him, causing the other people present to turn to him. "Fairly early on in the programs history, we had several run ins with people trying to go public with the program. Actually if it hadn't been for the Goa'uld we probably would have already gone public. While they never succeeded in going public they did show us that we had no contingencies in place should we need to go public. So we came up with a list of things that we would need to have ready in case we were forced to disclose the program."

Continuing on, "eventually the list made its way to the presidents office, where it got refined into what was the basis of what was showed to you today. Over the years bits and pieces of it were altered or removed, while new parts were added. When Russia joined we began to look at how we could go about a smooth disclosure of the program. And they had their own suggestions to add to it."

Davis took over, "One of the big suggestions they, and the Canadians made was to expand the number of nations represented in the program. Several lists were drawn up of the nations that were put forward to be included, with the reasons for and against inclusion. While we only disclosed initially to the four other nations here we had always planned on disclosing to more nations as time went on. The foremost nation we did not include in the first round of disclosures was France. Second to them was Israel and Australia, more for their locations, as they would allow us to have global coverage in the program."

The German representative posed a question he was sure was on their minds. "Any particular reason we would need global coverage, I assume you have something."

"Yes there is. Ever since we encountered the Tollans and their planetary defence system we have been looking at doing something similar on earth. Now while we haven't any surface to orbital weapons at the moment, we have been looking at what would be required in such a network. Having access to enough points around the globe to prevent any gaps in the weapons coverages was the first requirement we came up with for an effective global defence system."

"That seems quite ambitious, but if I may ask why not simply use orbital defences, then you wouldn't have to worry about having more nations involved just for where they are."

"Well first off having orbital satellite weapons platforms would violate international law on militarizing outerspace." This drew several chuckles from around the table. "And orbital installations are much harder to hide than ground based ones, as well as being easier to disable. Where as ground based installations can be easily hidden, and if constructed right can be extraordinarily difficult to remove from orbit."

"I see, it seems you've put a lot of thought into these proposals."

"That there has." Davis didn't mention that most of the thinking had been done on the political side not the military side.

"Going back to recent events at the tournament, I believe you all saw the effects of the Aile's long cannon, the one hundred fifty-two millimeter I believe it was. Just from observing what the single shot fired did to the Blitz, we just demonstrated a weapon that can destroy or disable nearly all current generation IS units in a single hit. Disregarding everything that alone has gotten peoples attention, and the attention of people we don't want to have the kind of capability that was demonstrated. Would anyone care to explain why such a weapon, was put on display for the whole world to see."

General MacDonald who had been silent until now answered. "That was not our intent, we intended to gain combat data of the one-fifty-two in action, and due to the nature of the weapon the only available unit that could use it was the Aile. Needless to say it surpassed our expectations. It also should be noted that a method of countering it was quickly discovered, that while not perfect does render it less effective."

"The weapon itself was originally conceived as a counter Al'kesh weapon that could be issued to our forces. And while it does fulfil that role, it does not do so without restrictions, currently only three of our IS units are capable of using it without having their arms ripped of. Namely the Aile, Mouretsu and the Buster, the rest of our units don't have enough reinforcement in the upper torso and arms to be able to fire it. Using a special penetrator round it can punch a hole through a fully shielded Al'kesh, from about twenty kilometers out any further and the chance of penetration drops."

"That seems to be an awfully potent weapon, though can you please explain to me why we need it, seeing as our current stock of SAMs seem to be doing just fine against Al'kesh."

"They're also bulky, and expensive per shot. Where as the one-fifty-two is expensive to build but inexpensive per shot, not to mention that we are looking at building a turret mount for it. It is however a prototype weapon."

"I see, then any one else have any prototype weapons they would like to share with the rest of us before we find out by it being showed publicly." The Chinese representatives question was met with a series of no. Some of them probably did, but who would actually admit to that.

_Several Days Later_

_Area Fifty-One_

Carter was on her way to her lab on her first day back from Japan, she was not looking forwards to the paperwork that had definitely accumulated on her desk while she had been away. The bright side of it was some of what had been on her desk when she left had been completed while she had been away, that at least would make her life somewhat easier. She then ignored the comment Jolinar made about humans and their obsession with paper work and how it served no real purpose.

Before she could make it to her lab she was intercepted by one of the bases MP's. She felt herself groan internally as she really did not want to deal with whatever he had sought her out for, didn't she have enough work to do already. Couldn't they wait a bit before they started bugging her about projects, and couldn't they come themselves rather than sending an MP to get her.

"Can you please come with me Ma'am." While he was polite he made it clear she didn't have an option, well she was already determined to have a chat with whoever sent him in the first place.

"Lead the way." He gave a curt nod before turning and starting down the corridor with her following behind. She followed him into the holding section of the base and she felt her curiosity and level of alertness jump several levels. Something was up, and they thought she or Jolinar could be of use, unfortunately it also meant something had gone wrong and they needed her. She did not think it was that bad or time sensitive as had that been the case she would have been beamed straight here.

So she followed the MP in front of her. He eventually lead her to one of the 'interrogation' or interview rooms that were located on base, she really didn't like where this was heading. The MP opened the door for her and she stepped in.

Inside the room was General Hammond and a AirForce Major whom she didn't recognize, along with another scientist whom she vaguely recognized. The three of them were standing on the other side of a table with a bunch of papers on it situated in the center of the room, with the one way window situated behind them. Hammond was the first one to speak, "have a seat Doctor," indicating to the chair in front of the table just in front of her.

The only thing that kept her clam was Hammonds presence, she knew that he would vouch for her over whatever she had been brought in for. As she had been tacking her seat the other three had taken up seats on the other side of the table from her, with Hammond being directly opposite her. He somehow figured out how anxious she was at the moment. "You can relax Doctor, we just need Jolinar to go over some things we don't want becoming common knowledge yet."

"Just over a week ago the Prometheus ran into something while in hyperspace in between Earth and Harvest. We have yet to find anything wrong with the ship itself, and have been unable to locate anything in vicinity of where the incident took place."

"And you want Jolinar because being a symbiote she has a few hundred years of experience to go on. Am I right." The three nods gave her all the answer she needed. "I also assume you have whatever you could gather here now." Another set of nods.

She lowered her head while she let Jolinar take over. Jolinar immediately began looking over the papers that had been placed out in front of her. There was every thing from shield readouts to the relative velocity of the ship before and after the incident as well as the calculated point of impact on the shield.

Jolinar spent a few minutes going over the information before looking back up at the other three. "_Well what have you made of it?"_

"At the moment we're not sure, we were hoping if you could tell us if any such incidents have been recorded by the Goa'uld. Or any other hyperspace using race you're aware of."

"_Well I can inform you that this is not the first time something like this has happened, as a matter of fact it is not that rare. When the Goa'uld first encountered the phenomenon there was a period of unease, until it became clear that a ship travelling with functioning shields was completely safe from it. After that it was seen more as a natural part of Hyperspace travel, nothing more. They never looked at it any closer, one due to that fact that it is an uncommon occurrence and two that because it has next to no effect it wasn't worth the effort. Has that answered your question."_

Hammond looked at her for a second before replying, "I believe it has. Thank you." She felt herself nod as Jolinar gave her control back.

She looked back up at the three of them. "So what do you make of that?" She asked them.

"Well from what Jolinar said, what the Prometheus encountered was a natural phenomenon, and one that isn't a danger to us. So for the time being we aren't going to do anything about it other than record it, put it on file and see if any other similar incidents like this happen again." He stood up from his chair. "You are all dissmissed."

She gave a quick salute which he returned before turning and heading back out of the room. She gave the MP outside a quick nod before starting the journey to her lab, which was overdue in her opinion. And there was something she wanted to ask Jolinar about on her way. _So what where you not mentioning to Hammond, and don't try to deny it. While you were telling him the truth it wasn't the whole truth was it._

_True enough, but what was left out is a lot less important than you seem to think._

_I'll be the judge of that._

_I was onboard a Ha'tak when we encountered one of these phenomenon. The experience was unsettling at the time, though I does allow me to attest to the fact that even though it was unsettling no actual damage was incurred._

_I see, though it may have been important, it isn't important enough to go back and inform them. Though next time if you have direct experience with something they may like to know about it._

_I will keep that in mind._

_Now, I have some work that needs taken care of, hopefully I can get it all done before the Blitz gets here and I'm stuck working on that._

_Very, well. I still will never understand your kind's attachment to writing everything down several times._

_I don't fully understand it myself. _Her only reply was a short laugh. Opening she was dismayed but not surprised to see the amount of paperwork that had accumulated on her desk during her short vacation. Taking a seat behind her desk she began to leaf through it, stopping only to go out to collect some nourishment.

_Firing Range_

McKay was rather pleased with himself as a one-fifty-two cannon was mounted on a series of braces for a demonstration of a weapon built by him. At almost five meters long it was the largest non fixed emplacement or ship cannon ever used by the SGC or the Stargate Program. Opposite of it was a reproduction of an Al'keshs front hull, complete with a series of shield emitters with the generator itself being out of the line of fire. And behind that was a second set of shield emitters in front of a two dozen meter thick concrete wall forming the rear of the firing range.

It appeared some people doubted his word on what this cannon could do, well today he would prove the naysayers wrong. He was really looking forwards to that part. Truthfully he expected to put another round into the concrete wall to join the dozens of other that had been put there over the years. There had even been an unofficial contest a while back to see who could punch the most holes in the wall. But that had been shut down when the brass decided they didn't like fixing the wall every week.

It had been fun while it lasted.

The test was beginning now, from inside the control area that was protected by a half wall of steel and an energy shield powered from the base. While it may not protect them from a concentrated blast of some of the weapons tested here it would protect them from any misfires or back fires that occurred.

"All shields are on. Weapon ready." One of the techs called out. "Firing in three.. two.. one.. Firing." There was a flash of light from the muzzle of the cannon followed an instant later by the shield around the Al'kesh lighting up for a brief second.

One of the scientists who had come to watch turned to him. "Well, that was certainly visually impressive but I don't think you managed to 'take out the Al'kesh in a single shot' like you claimed."

The tech who had done the countdown turned to the two of them. "Actually the rear wall shield had a massive power drain on it shortly after firing the cannon." He let his best smug smile appear on his face, oh did it feel good to be right. The look of sheer disbelief on the other scientists face was well worth it as well. Who needed the likes of Carter and Ny when you had McKay.

"I believe it's time to go inspect the Al'kesh itself, seeing is believing after all." After receiving the all clear from the tech, he lead the group of scientists out towards the Al'kesh. Aproaching it from a distance it looked fine. But as the group got closer it became easier to see the hole that had been punched into the front hull of the mock up. And if the tech had been telling the truth punched clean through to the back of the mockup and out the other side. A pity he hadn't been able to punch through the rear wall shield as well, that would have been some nice bragging material.

The shield around the Al'kesh had been shut off allowing the scientists to get up close and see the hole itself, several went around to the back to find the exit hole as well. Well the shot itself probably wouldn't bring down an Al'kesh on the first shot, it would however do some serious damage to the internal systems. Which might bring it down, but at the very least it would leave it vulnerable to a second shot, or other weapons.

Either way he mused it was currently the only weapon capable of penetrating any sort of shielded unit in a single hit, while still being man portable. Or in this case IS portable. Now if he could only build a weapon that could one shot a Ha'tak he would never have anyone doubt his superiority again.

_Ba'als Palace, Renvar_

Ba'al looked over the holographic projection of the galaxy with the various domains of the system lords shown. Recent events had changed the map from what it had been a few months ago. What truly annoyed him was that he had very little to do with those changes, instead it had been Anubis taking Sokar's territory, Heru'ur going after Moloc and a dozen other minor conflicts which had truly changed where the power lay in the galaxy.

He supposed he should just be thankful that he had yet to lose territory over the course of this war, a not unimpressive achievment. But even so he wanted to win this war not merely survive it.

He had half expected for Anubis to come after him while he was focused on Sheng'li, instead the Anubis had gone after Sokar and nearly eliminated him. Which had highlighted how outclassed his forces were by those of Anubis. And even with several examples of Kull armour to work with he still had no way of reproducing it or countering it.

Nerus had been working on it around the clock to the point where the fat Goa'uld was actually starting to lose weight, something Ba'al had never thought possible. Still progress had been slow and all they had to show for it was a few cobbled together repeating plasma weapons. Nothing that would truly change the galactic situation, right away at least. He had already come up with several ways to employ this new technology if it could scale. The thought of a single Ha'tak cabable of simply overwhelming it's opponents in a torrent of plasma shots filled him with joy and dread. He would have to be the first and only one to use such Ha'tak, anything less and he may as well resign from his position as system lord.

While that project was progressing slowly at least it was progressing, his other project was currently going nowhere. The biggest problem he was having was trying to either get enough power to use the shields weapons and still be able to move. Or the inverse of trying to make one that was powered small enough to be transported to a planets surface, either by Chappa'ai or by being landed in. a.. ship...

Why did the ship have to land in the first place... Why couldn't he simply drop them from orbit, or high altitude. It was already going to have a shield so why not make the engines stronger so it could do reentry by itself, it's not like it needed to come back up by itself. Though that still left the issue of recovery, though that was of secondary concern right now.

Dismissing the galactic map he summoned up his current notes on his project. He began by selecting one of the larger designs he had been working on, at least for a prototype it would be the easiest to work with. He started by increasing the size of the engine, then he began to refine the design from there. Some room for repeater cannons there and there, smoothing out the bottom for better reentry performance. And while he was at it he added enough space for twenty Jaffa warriors to ride down with it alongside the crew to operate it.

After several minutes of fiddling with the design he came to a design he believed would be ideal, or at least a good proof of concept design. And given how much production he had gained through his reforms, he would be able to churn out at least of few prototypes. Six emplacements for weapons, one in front with two on each side and one on the top. Space for the dozen or so Jaffa to crew it along with up to twenty or so others inside at the same time. And he even had the perfect Jaffa in mind to try them out. Today marked the beginning of his ascent to supreme system lord of the Goa'uld, the others would never expect this.

A cynical point of his mind pointed out that no one had expected the Kull either, and they hadn't exactly won the war for Anubis. He pointed out to that part of his mind that he had a much larger fleet than Anubis to take advantage of his new creation.

And thus the Land Al'kesh was born.

Now he just needed some weapons from Nerus and to figure out how to recover them and he would be all set. He idilly wondered how the Tau'ri would react to his new machine, most likely with fear, and that was how he liked it.


	21. Chapter 16-Really!

_Chapter Sixteen, Really!_

_IS Academy, Earth, July 2015_

"Are we really changing schools just so that people can go to the beach?" Cassandra asked the gathered group of her friends.

"Yes, do you have a problem with going to the beach?" Cecilia answered her.

"Not really, it just seems a little much for one thing. And besides aren't we already in a school on an island. Why do we have to go to another location just to find somewhere by the water." Sometimes things at this school just didn't make any sense.

"Because there aren't any beaches here that's why, I thought you knew that Cassandra." Nizru sounded somewhat disappointed in her, not something she intended to fix anytime soon. Nizru had backed off trying to get into her bed and she wanted to keep it that way. That had also caused Cecilia to tone it down as well. Seeing as she was interested in neither of them it suited her just fine.

"Then why don't they just make a beach here, I'm sure they could do that with all the money they get." The glares she got made her drop it. "Fine, do it the stupid way."

Her attention was then drawn to the side of the table were Sasha, the pair and a few others were sitting. The volume of noise had increased and it was easy to see why as Sasha was in the process of trying to hog all the ice-cream, no one there appeared happy about that. She would never get Sasha's obsession with ice-cream, hell she would never get anything about Sasha anyways so what had made her think this would have been any different.

She moved over and separated the warring parties, earning a disappointed puppy eyed look from Sasha, something she had long ago become immune to. As she began the long arduous process of sorting out this latest incident, she wondered if maybe it wasn't better to let someone else deal with it for a change. But then nothing would ever get done.

She was really looking forwards to not having to deal with this for the rest of the day. As they were being allowed of campus for the day if they wished. Something she was all to glad to take advantage of.

_Later_

_Monorail between IS Academy and mainland_

She had decided to not wear her uniform on her outing today, one because she disliked having to wear a uniform at all, she put up with it at school. And two because it would draw to much attention to herself, and seeing as she didn't want to attract the kind of attention the uniform would bring to her it made sense not to wear it. Nor was she the only one who had opted not to wear the uniform on this outing, almost a third of the girls on the train with her where dressed in casual clothes. Some a bit to revealing for her tastes.

She was hoping to have the day to herself without anyone interfering with it, however given how the universe treated such requests she was expecting at least one incident of interference. The trick was to be on the lookout for it and be ready so that it didn't hurt to much.

She was drawn out of her thoughts when someone sat down beside her. Turning her to the side she saw Houki sitting beside her. "And what do you want, you didn't sit here by accident did you."

"You're right I sat here on purpose. Truth is I wanted to talk to you for a bit."

"About what, last time we 'talked' you were doing your best to beat me in a fight during the tournament. And if I remember correctly you lost. So what do you want to talk about."

"It's about what happened during the tournament. What you said, it made me look back over myself, and I realized how awful I had been to the people closest to me, especially when they were trying to help me. I had been pushing everyone away when I should have been letting them get close. I had been taking my anger out on my opponents in Kendo, and I thought I angry at the world when in reality I was angry at myself. I just want to thank you for showing me how wrong I was, now I can start doing what I should have been doing years ago, getting on with my life."

Well she certainly hadn't been expecting that. "Why tell me this, why not go to one of your close people." She really didn't want to have to deal with emotional issues today, especially with someone she barely knew.

"Because you were the one to open my eyes, I thought for the longest time that I had been singled out, the only one bad things happened to. I never once thought that others could be suffering as well, I had only been thinking about myself, letting my anger rule over me. Then you came along with your own pain, your own history of suffering, but you didn't let your anger rule you. Unlike me you had instead focused on moving forwards rather than focusing on the past. After all these years I feel so stupid for living in the past and not even trying to move on."

"And you're telling me this why," they locked eyes for a few seconds, "wait you're not going to be trying to get in my bed are you?"

Houki simply burst out laughing, "no, though I do have to wonder how your life is going if you have to worry about things like that." Regaining her composure, "anyways it's been nice talking to you." With that Houki got up and left.

A head of blond hair stood in front of Houki as she made her way to the back of the train. "And what do you think you're doing." She had long ago become aware of the haughtiness that was the British representative candidate, Cecilia Alcot.

"Looking for someone," Cecilia rolled her eyes, "though if you're referring to Cassandra, I'm not going after your crush. Besides I don't even swing that way. I'm after a certain prince anyways." Cecilia stifled a chuckle, "what!"

"I can't believe you want some useless man," she felt her face heat up, "but if that means you aren't after Cassandra then I suppose it's all right." She just rolled her eyes as Cecilia stepped to the side. "I believe your prince is waiting back there, better get to him before someone else does." She just rolled her eyes as she stepped by Cecilia. "But I think even you can agree that we need to keep your prince and Cassandra separated." She merely nodded.

_Mall_

The mall was several stories tall and filled with stores, ranging from clothing to electronics. Intermixed with a variety of food shops, all of them displaying flashy advertisements in writing. Specifically Kanji, which she still had trouble reading, making it so she had to look in each store to figure out what they were selling.

At the moment she was looking to get a swimsuit, as she had not packed one with her because she had not thought she would ever have a chance to use one. Showed what she knew. Who would have thought that people would go out of their way to go to the beach, though she supposed people would want to go to the beach during summer. Still no one had mentioned anything about going to another school to get to a beach until recently, certainly not when she had still been back in the US. A cynical part of her mind noted that it had most likely been written down and posted somewhere, which she still couldn't read.

After several minutes of looking she manged to find an entire store dedicated to bathing suits, correction, dedicated to female swimsuits. A little excessive in her opinion, mainly because she was used to merely having a section of a larger store dedicated to swimsuits, rather than a whole store dedicated to them. Still it had what she was looking for which was all that mattered in the end.

She entered the store and looked around for a bit before being intercepted by a sales clerk. "Can I help you with anything?"

"Yeah, I'm looking for the least revealing swimsuit you have." The clerk paused for a second, while looking fairly confused. Probably didn't get requests like that at all.

After a few moments, "follow me," she could tell from the tone of their voice that they found this amusing. She followed the clerk to the back of the store where several one piece suits were hung. "When you find one that you like give me a call and I'll get you a change room." The clerk gave a short bow, which she returned before heading off.

About half an hour later she was at the cashier checking out what had to the only decent swimsuit in the whole store. Hell wouldn't surprise her if it was the only decent one in the whole mall, she shivered remembering how little some of the swimsuits covered. And to think that they were targeted at girls her age, it was something she'd rather not dwell on.

As she was going through her wallet for the money she needed, she accidentally knocked her student card out onto the counter. She quickly picked it up and put it back into her wallet, but not before the cashier had seen it. "I didn't realize you were a student at the academy, if you give us your room number we can ship this right to you." That sounded, tempting.

Before she could decide, "would you mind hurrying it up already, I have several other errands to run as well." She really didn't like their tone. Turning around she came face to face with the largest chest she had ever seen, did this person have surgery or something. Then she looked up and saw Chifuyu Orimura looking back at her. "Ohh, it's you."

Several of the phrases she had been coming up with died in her throat as she remembered Carter telling her that this woman had survived for a few minutes against Teal'c. "I'll take the shipping option." After quickly giving her room number and paying for it, she quickly left the store.

Chifuyu watched Cassandra hurry out of the store, was she really that scary? "You know, I don't remember this store having a delivery option to the academy Sayaka."

"It's something new."

"Sayaka, don't even try it with me. Hand it over and I'll make sure it gets to the poor girl." The woman gave a pout. "Now."

"Fine," she was surprised by what Cassandra had chosen, but then again the girl was trying to keep admirers away not attract them so it sort of made sense. "But did you at least get the item Tabanae wanted."

She felt herself blush slightly, "yes." And if had been anyone other than Tabanae requesting she wouldn't even had considered wearing something like what she got. But it was a small price to pay if it kept Tabanae from doing anything other than clinging to her.

"Good, good. Don't want to disappoint Tabanae now do you." She had to force down a scowl as she paid for her item and left the store, making a mental note to drop Cassandra's item of at her room at some point.

After escaping from an irate Ms Orimura, Cassandra made her way around the mall without any particular destination in mind. It was at times like these that she wished she had a better grasp of Kanji, seeing as any information of value on the signs around her was most likely written in it. She didn't know what it was but she just didn't seem to be able to get it despite extensive effort of herself and her tutors. Might have something to do with what Cecilia would rather be doing with her other than tutoring.

As such she was walking down one of the ways when something caught her eye causing her to back up a few steps. She was fairly certain the store she was standing in front of was a game store, though she could be mistaken. It certainly looked like one at any rate, shelves lined with small boxes, and some large ones displaying what she was certain were the latest game systems. And then there were the poster, some of which she recognized as being either new releases or soon to be released. Either a game store or a place that sold games, an irrelevant distinction to her.

Entering the store she quickly decided that actually buying anything would be a bad idea. Seeing as she would have to play them while trying to read Kanji, and that would be an exercise in frustration. Still it was nice to browse through some of the stuff, and it helped her come up with a list of things to get if they were available in English. It wasn't like she was going to miss out on anything she wasn't already missing out on in the meantime.

She was reaching for one of the games on one of the lower shelf's when her hand ran into someone else hand. The two of them immediately withdrew their hands from where they were, and looked up to see who else had been going for the game they had their eye on.

She came face to face with a long red haired boy with a bandana tying his hair back. They both blinked at each other for several moments. "Sorry didn't see you there. Uhh, ladies first."

"It's okay, it wasn't like I was going to buy it anyways."

He frowned a bit, "then what were you doing?"

"Picking out titles to get in the future, and I was just checking it out anyways. It wasn't like I had actually decided to buy it at some point. And I kind of have trouble reading Kanji, because Japanese isn't my first language. And I'm ranting aren't I."

"Yes, yes you are. So just shopping are you, for you or a boyfriend."

She felt her face heat up, "me, I don't have a boyfriend," she cast her eyes to the side, "yet."

"I see, so your interest is RPGs."

"Sorta, it's just that I like how you can watch as your character grows up as you progress in the game, that part kinda got me hooked on the whole genre."

"I'm more of a shooter person myself, though I do enjoy the occasional shooter RPG. Those are always fun, I like how in most of them you can loot your defeated foes, that's always fun. Though I don't know how you like that kind of stuff."

She had to let herself smile at that, "that's the best part of the RPGs that have it, there's nothing better than taking an enemies weapon and using it to beat his buddies." There was the minor detail that SG teams liked to do that as well, but she couldn't exactly tell him that could she. "Though you have to remember that you managed to take it from them, so it is beatable."

"So true. So true. So many people seem to forget that. I enjoy reminding them of that fact." She giggled at that. "Then there are the people who don't know how to play who think they do, they're always fun to beat."

"I have to agree with you there. You play Worlds at all?"

"Ohh, that space MMORPG, yeah play it occasionally, can't do a lot of gaming with school in session and there are so many titles to play that long running ones get pushed to the back of my play-list. Though I must say it was really fun to play, might actually get back into it, screen-name's GOT-D, what's yours?"

"Cas. If I see you in there I'll try to party up with you, I need some help with some of the quests I have lined p. Going at them solo hasn't been working."

"Doesn't sound to bad..." Anything else he was about to say was cut off by a high pitched yell, "and that would be my signal to get out of here before the wrath comes down on my head. Sorry to leave so abruptly, it's been nice talking to you."

"You too." And with that he left through the front entrance while trying to be sneaky about it, before turning and attempting to sneak down the malls isle. A few moments after he disappeared from view she spotted a slightly younger and female version of him scanning the area. She quietly wished him luck before going back to her shopping. And she hadn't gotten his name, well real name at any rate, she really had to stop doing that. It was going to lead to a socially awkward situation one of these days.

_Later, IS Academy_

Cassandra sat down with her supper in the schools cafeteria. She was quite exhausted from the days shopping, and she had only bought one thing, and that was being delivered. She truly hopped she never had to carry a full load worth of shopping goods back anytime soon.

And with any luck she would have her swimsuit by the end of today or tomorrow, and with any luck it would stop her admirer from trying anything. Or stop them from pointlessly staring at her, that had been getting a little creepy. She had gone so far as to avoid changing at the same time as them to avoid it, that had cut down on it at least though it had yet to stop it. She doubted anything would. Speaking of which, they would normally be here trying to sit as close to her as they could. If it meant she could eat in peace she wasn't going to worry about it.

She had gotten halfway through her meal when a commotion at one of the cafeteria entrances drew her attention and the attention of almost all the people present. The silver haired girl with the eye-patch she had fought in the tournament was standing in front of a group of students, she spotted Cecilia near the front of the group. So that's where she was. The group had erected a banner above them, which she couldn't read, and were trying to get everyone's attention. Which they were partially succeeding at, and as she looked at the group longer she manged to pick out several other people she recognized. She spotted Ludmilia, Carmen, Charles who was looking rather dejected, along with several other students she didn't recognize. Now she was interested, it involved a male IS pilot and Ludmilia.

"Ahem," the silver haired girl cleared her throat, "will you listen up we have an important announcement to make. We are hereby announcing the creation of the European Alliance."

"Ahh," Charles spoke up in a rather sheepish voice, "don't you mean European club."

"No, it's the European Alliance, not club we have already gone over this in the meetings. Now shut up and stop running our introduction." She had to admit that the they could really project their voice when they wanted to, now if only they could know when not to project it they would be all set. "Now where were we... Right, we are the European Alliance, representing all European students attending this school. Anyone who tries to mess with one of our members will have to face all of this." She gave them about a week until the teachers took it apart, in the meantime they were putting on quite the show.

It was then that she noticed that their apparent leader was glaring at her, and considering the only time they had actually had any sort of interaction was at the tournament. It wasn't hard to figure out why they were glaring, evidently someone held a grudge. And had recruited an army to take her down, and Blitz was on the other side of the pacific being repaired, what a lovely situation she found herself in.

And know they were stalking towards her, and she couldn't think of any way to get herself out of this except try to hear them out. Which was bound to be irritating. However any thoughts of trying to get out of this particular situation was cut short by Sasha running up to the other silver-haired girl. "Do you guys got icecream."

She was pretty sure she saw the girls uncovered eye blink several times, while her mouth simply hung open. And she had to resit the urge to laugh, and looking over at the group by the entrance Ludmilia was already on the floor laughing. "Uhh... no." The girl then proceeded to back away from Sasha a few steps.

"Ahh, why does no one have ice-cream, it's even summer so they can't say it's cold out and you shouldn't be eating cold stuff when it's cold out." The other girl continued backing away, run, run before or Sasha will get you in an ice-cream rant. Wait weren't they serving ice-cream earlier, because she pretty sure they were.

Well its not like it really mattered to her. Everyone gradually g settled down to finish their meals, which also meant she now had Cecilia infringing on her personal space. She finished up as quickly as she could.

_Later_

She had not expected it to take an hour to get herself out of the cafeteria. First there had been the whole thing with Cecilia latching onto her, then the pair had shown up and boxed her in, while commenting on how she was cheating on Nizru. Which implied she was in any sort of romantic in the first place, which she wasn't, and that she was into girls, which she wasn't. She had yet to figure out why everyone seemed to think she needed a girlfriend, she wanted a decent boyfriend who didn't have a few hundred other girls after him. That shouldn't have been as hard to get as it had turned out to be, though going to a nearly all girls school probably wasn't helping there.

She really should borrow Ichika's idea of not bothering with any sort of romantic relationship until after she graduated. Probably the best idea for her at the moment.

Stifling a yawn a she approached her shared room, she was really looking forwards to a good nights rest and leaving everything until the morning. She reached her room and began opening the door-

"_I'm going to turn you into a meat puppet."_

-and promptly closed it again. Legs ramrod straight she continued wide eyed in the direction she had been heading in before.

Chifuyu made her way down the corridor to where Cassandra Fraiser's room was with the girls new swimsuit. It was extremely modest compared to what most girls her age were wearing, it was even decent, not a lot of female swimsuits now a days were. She would have gotten it here earlier, but between Tabanae, the assassins slash kidnappers, police, finding something to eat, fans and a long line at the monorail this was the earliest she could make it. Still it was the same day she had bought it so it wasn't that bad.

She got to the correct door and knocked a couple of times. She heard a chair moving around a few moments before the door opened up. _"Casandra I can expl... _Oh, um what are you here for." The girl who answered her door was not Cassandra, most likely her roommate. And she sounded like she was hiding something.

"Is Cassandra in."

"Uhh, no. She just came by here though." Something was definitely up.

"What happened, best it gets dealt with quickly, before the rumours start piling up."

"Well, she kind of walked in when a certain sound-byte was playing, and taken out of context it probably sounded really bad."

"Of that I have no doubt. Drop this on her bed," she handed the swimsuit over to the girl, "and then we should probably go find Cassandra before become any worse." The girl went and placed the swimsuit on the bed closest to the door before returning to her. "Now do you know which way she went." The girl just shook her head, well this was turning into an interesting evening. "We should probably start with the common rooms, and yes you are coming with me don't try to get out of it. You caused this in the first place so you can help resolve it."

Cassandra sat in the cafeteria downing her fifth drink, while reaching for her sixth. "You really should stop, I'm pretty sure having that much orange juice at a time isn't good for you." She just shot Cecilia a glare while setting down drink number six and picking up number seven. "You know unless you tell us what happened we can't do anything to help you." Grabbing for number eight her hands were shaking, Cecilia grasped her hand and pined it to the table with her own hand. "No more until you tell us what's going on. You've managed to get a caffeine rush from orange juice, something that shouldn't even be possible. So until you tell us what's going on no more orange juice for you."

Before Cecilia could continue the door on the other side of the Cafeteria opened and Ms Orimura walked in followed by Sasha. Chifuyu began sweeping her gaze over the gathered students, while she thought of the best way to make a run for it. Which was promptly abandoned when Ms Orimura's gaze settled on her.

Chifuyu began making her way over to where she was seated with Sasha trying to look as small as possible behind her. "So falling out with your roommate?" Cecilia asked.

"Sort of." Cecilia obviously wanted to push her for more but remained silent instead.

Chifuyu came right up to the table she was sitting at, with Sasha doing her best to look inconspicuous, it really wasn't working. "I would like to speak to Ms. Fraiser alone." Cecilia grumbled a bit before getting up and moving away. "And anyone caught listening in will regret it." The people at the nearby tables suddenly found interesting stuff to do elsewhere. "Ms. McQuabe please take a seat." Sasha gave a quick nod before taking a seat opposite from her while Ms Orimura took a seat in between the two of them.

"Now I don't know the exact details of what happened, but from what I've heard it was all some bad timing and misconceptions. I'm operating on that being the case, the two of you are going to sort it out and you're not getting out of here until you do." Ms. Orimura leaned back and crossed her arms. "Well what are you waiting for."

Sasha cleared her throat once. _"Cassandra I can explain."_

"_I don't think there's anything to explain."_

"_No there is, if I had been wearing headphones or ear-buds this wouldn't have happened."_

"_Then why weren't you?"_

"_Because it occasionally feels nice not to have to wear them, besides I wasn't expecting you back so soon. And you had to come at the most inopportune time."_

"_So what were you doing that someone would yell, 'I'm going to turn you into a meat puppet.' Because that kind of stuff doesn't show up a lot."_

"_A game."_

"_And the person saying it."_

"_A psycho." _Well at least the name matched what they were saying. _"I'm still not convinced."_

"_Really, you aren't convinced, Cas the godslayer."_

She felt herself blush. _"How do you know that? I never told you, or anyone else in this school."_

"_But you told that guy in the game shop earlier."_

"_You were there and eavesdropping!"_

"_I wasn't eavesdropping, you were just kinda of loud. So it was kinda hard not to overhear."_

"_Ohh, I take it you play Worlds as well too. Have we met online by any chance?"_

"_No, it's your reputation that precedes you. No one else has managed to solo three dungeon bosses, that kind of stuff makes people take notice. Well in game at least, I don't think anyone else cares."_

"_I have an online reputation? I.. I should probably fix that."_

"_I don't see the problem."_

"_Of course you don't."  
_

"Ahem, are you two done sorting it out, I really don't want to be here all night, and I suspect neither do you too." Ms. Orimura's interruption cut off any response from Sasha. "Well are you?"

"Ohh, we sorted that out already, and then we just kept chatting." She was going to give Sasha the benefit of the doubt, until she could figure out exactly what happened then she would make a final decision.

"Alright then, the two of you are free to go. Please don't make me have to do this again, because next time it won't be a simple 'let the two of you sort it out'. Am I understood." She and Sasha both nodded, Ms. Orimura then got up and left. And as soon a she was gone the two girls let out a sigh of relief. They looked at each other a moment before quietly giggling.

"_She's scary isn't she."_

"_Yes she is. I wonder how she became a teacher. Or is that why she became a teacher, I can never tell with people like that."_

"_Too true." _Both of them let out some more giggles before getting up and heading back to their room.

_Undisclosed Location_

Tabanae walked towards her lab after recently acquiring breakfast form the on-site 'cafeteria', really it was more communal kitchen than anything else. She stopped when she heard a scream followed by several crashes, followed by more crashes followed by more, and she just started doing a mental checklist of how much it was going to cost for repairs and replacement. By the time the crashes had stopped she had reached a pretty hefty sum. And while her funds were quite large, they weren't infinite and this incident would take a fairly large chunk out of them. Why oh why didn't she work alone, it would have been extrodinairly less expensive, then trying to work with the assistants she had.

Rounding the corner she peering around the corner she saw Mitsuomie lying in a pile of various odds and ends. She then muttered a prayer to whatever deity or divine being was paying attention that the only things broken were a coffee cup and a clipboard. And a really big mess to clean up, but at least most of that stuff was really hard to break. And really how can someone trip over their own two feet like that, wasn't stuff like walking very easy to do, seeing as everyone could do it. So how.

She heard some very quiet footsteps behind her, and judging by how they were sounding, it was Sayaka. "So really think my idea of locking her into a wheel chair is a bad idea."

"Yes, that would be cruel to her."

"Crueler than letting her continue trying to walk."

"You could always let her go you know."

"Not really an option, one; she knows were this place is, two; she actually pretty smart when she sitting down. And three; she's been with me since the start, so letting her go would be mean, especially when there are other options available."

"Options that we are not using."

"Ohh come on, even you have to admit that it will solve her problem."

"And in the meantime create another, not very efficient."

"Another lesser problem." And before Sayaka could retort, "anyways lets get this cleaned up first before it becomes a bigger mess."

"Fine. Ohh, I have some news for you as well. I managed to successfully get the item to Chifuyu."

Her hands moved to confront of her chest, where she began moving them back and forth. "Excellent. Most excellent. Good work minion, soon my plan for total Chifuyu domination will come to fruition." Sayaka just shook her head.

_Saranase, Domain of Moloc_

Isshta ducked behind the fallen tree as another staff blast from the warriors of Moloc flew over her head. She shot back up and fired a quick shot into her enemies, she didn't stick up long enough to see if it hit as she quickly ducked back down to avoid another flurry of staff blasts aimed at her. She risked a peak out from her hiding place, there must have been at least two dozen dead warriors in front of her and her fellow sisters position, but still more Jaffa of Moloc came forwards. Soon they would simply overwhelm her force through sheer numbers. This had supposed to be a simple raid to acquire more symbiotes, but had quickly spiralled out of control. And now she was beginning to doubt if they could even make it out of here alive.

She had no idea who was still alive and who was dead, all she did know was that she still had some sisters left given that she wasn't the only one firing at Moloc's Jaffa, so there was that at least. Thought even that was small comfort as the number of outgoing shots was to far to few for them to have lost no one. And their losses only made the current situation worse than it had been.

She popped back up and fired off another shot before dropping back into cover, at least that was to their advantage as the Jaffa of Moloc simply stood around in the open. Easy to hit, and easy to kill at least, though there was a lot of them with more coming in. If this kept up she, and the rest of the Hak'tyl were dead no matter how well and long they fought.

She pushed those thoughts form her head, she could not allow the Hak'tyl to fall here or soon all to many newborn girls would perish in the fires. All to satisfy Moloc's mad desires, she could not let that happen. And to be able to stop that she had to survive this. She popped back off and let off another shot, then she did something she had never thought she would do again, she prayed.

_Later_

She stood up from where she had been hiding as the last of Moloc's Jaffa fell. She still could not believe she had survived that, sadly she knew that several of her sisters had not. Masielle's pale eyes looked up at the sky, the massive burn mark in the middle of her chest left little doubt as to whether she was still alive. It had been barely a month since she had received her symbiote, she was too young to have been brought on this mission. But now it was too late for any of that, the deed had been done and she would have to live with the consequences.

Of the two dozen she had brought with her, only eight were moving about the bodies of fallen warriors. A pitiful sight to behold, three others had to rest to allow time for their symbiotes to heal them so they could move again. The rest, well the rest were beyond any help.

This raid had cost them to many, but if they did not conduct these raids the Hak'tyl would die out from lack of symbiotes. But nor could they afford such losses on these raids. This had supposed to have been an attack on a patrol of no more than a dozen warriors, instead it seemed the entire garrison had showed up. Which meant that either they had gotten off a call for help, something that she had insured would not happen before she and her sisters attacked. Or they knew an attack was coming, which meant that someone had tipped off Moloc, and if so why had it only been the garrison that had come after them, why not send more?

Varrious questions circled around her mind as she lead her remaining sisters back to the Chappa'ai with their loot from the raid. After having buried their fallen away from the scene so that they would not be found.

_SGC, Earth_

Ferreti walked down the ramp from the Stargate after having just arrived back from his raid on one of Moloc's world, Saranase he thought it was. Well didn't matter now, and he was finally getting some leave time, he planned to spend most of it with Andrew. Hammond was waiting for him at the bottom of the ramp.

"Well, how did it go."

"Almost no resistance sir. We got right up to the barracks before they even knew we were there. And then it was only about a dozen of them."

"What about the garrison, weren't there supposed to be at least a hundred of them?"

"No sign of the garrison sir. And at most I only expect there to about a two or three dozen on patrol. Two groups made it back, but they came back several minutes apart so they were easy to deal with, still not enough to account for the whole garrison though."

"So then where were the rest of them?"

"Of the rest, no sign, it's like they just up and disappeared. I suspected a trap so I sent the stuff we got to an uninhabited world to be checked out."

"Did they find anything yet?"

"No sir."

"Then have it moved to the alpha site," he gave Hammond a quizzical look, "new policy on situations like this." That partially explained it, still he hopped nothing went wrong when they brought that stuff home. That raid had been way to easy, no raid was ever that easy.


	22. Chapter 17-Amazon Rebels

_Chapter Seventeen, Amazon Rebels_

_Hak'tly, Domain of Moloc, August 2015_

Isshta looked over her assembled sisters, as the final parts of the coming of age ceremony were completed for their newest sister. It was a hollow reminder to her that their newest sister was still extremely young, and yet she would have to be brought into battle. Just like the few dozen she had lost over the years, all of them to young to have seen battle.

Still isn't wasn't like she had much of a choice, and she knew for a fact that those who had died would rather do so on the field of battle then in the fires. It had almost been fifteen years since Moloc had decreed that only male Jaffa may be born, the females would be burned at birth. At the time she had been the high priestess of Moloc and had not simply accepted his decree, she had not been alone. Working together with several other priestesses she had began smuggling newborn children out of the temple and to Hak'tyl were they would be relatively safe.

Of course it was only relatively safe, seeing as only Moloc's ignorance of Hak'tyl prevented him from attacking it. And even then it had only been a safe haven until the first of the rescued children had come of age and required a symbiote to stay alive. While she had been able to acquire the first few relatively easily, any more then she had taken would have become suspicious. Thus she and a few of the other priestesses had taken to raiding Jaffa for their symbiotes, among other things. And while they had originally targeted any Jaffa, her ability to gather information about the on-goings of Moloc's domain meant that the raids against Moloc's warriors had the highest chance of success. Thus they abandoned attacking other domains in favour of focusing on the warriors of Moloc.

That had been the case until relatively recently, it seemed the waves being caused by Anubis and Ba'al had reached Moloc. From all appearances he was shoring up his patrols to make them less likely to be taken out by a raiding party. Which made it harder for her and her sisters, and while she was doing some information gathering at the temple to see if she could uncover what changes were being made so they could be countered. Unfortunately she hadn't uncovered much, either someone suspected a traitor or spy, or the changes were being done by individual commanders. She wasn't sure which possibility would be the most dangerous to her, and the rest of the Hak'tyl.

She was drawn out of her thought when she felt someone approach. "Isshta, there you are."

"What is it Keelah." Her 'second in command' was an old friend from when she used to be a priestess, quite good with numbers Keelah had managed to keep the Hak'tyl running, despite having next to nothing to work with.

"I have the final tallies for you, your not going to like them."

"Give them to me, I need to hear them anyways."

"While we have an excess of Ma'toks and Zats, we are running short on food and symbiotes. We're nearing the last of the reserves for the symbiotes, I'd give us another two months until we run out, and that's if we mange to acquire another two or three dozen. We're not as bad off for food, if we don't get any more mouths our current supply will last us about three or four months. However I don't think you need me to tell you how bad our situation is."

"No I don't, but it's nice to know what we have."

"On that, Say'ush and Vion are fully healed they can accompany you on your next raid. And Helia, Gedesaih and Shion are almost done their training, if you wish to bring them along they would not be a burden."

"But they are so young."

"As were we all once. It doesn't change that we need warriors and those three are the oldest of them all. I know they may be young when compared to you and I but they have every reason to fight with us, more if you consider that Moloc tried to deny their right to live."

"I know that, but it so hard sending those so young into battle."

"And it is because you have those doubts that the others follow you. But remember that if you do not they would not have a chance to live, it may be cruel but at least it is better for them to die trying to live than to be killed without even being given a chance." She scowled, she knew all that, yet it still didn't make it any less painful seeing the cold eyes of a girl dead on the field of battle. "Have you considered trying to reach out to one of the other system lords, or the Tok'ra?"

"At best they would laugh at us, and at worst they would inform Moloc of us, or simply destroy us themselves. No reaching out to a system lord is the last thing we want to do. The Tok'ra, the Tok'ra are barely able to keep themselves alive, but we would lose nothing talking to them. If we can find them, they have managed to keep themselves hidden for this long, I do not believe we could find them in the time we have left. Then there's convincing them of our sincerity, which I believe will be even harder than finding them."

"Then what of the Asgard or human worlds?"

"The Asgard haven't been seen in ages. The Tollan are gone, the Hebridans keep to their little corner of the galaxy. The rest have either live in fear of the system lords or have forgotten them, neither would be willing to aid us. That leaves only the Tau'ri, and unless you know how to contact them trying to even talk to them is impossible."

"So we are on our own."

"For now yes, though I wish it were not so."

"So unless something changes we are done for."

"Yes, though even still I will do all that I can, the longer we can hold on the better chance we of getting our miracle." What went unsaid was how unlikely a miracle was.

_Flight Control Room, Area Fifty-One, Earth_

The windows in the control room overlooked the vast underground hangars beneath the surface, hidden from anyone trying to look at them from above. "This is control to Daedalus, confirming connection."

"This is Daedalus," Colonel Steven Caldwell came over the com system. "All systems are showing green. Requesting permission to launch."

"Local time is oh-one hundred hours, retracting bay doors and releasing docking clamps. Daedalus you are clear for launch."

"Acknowledged control."

_Daedalus_

"This is it people," Caldwell turned to the com," control, this is Daedalus, we are launching."

"Confirmed Daedalus, course is clear." Several of the monitors in the CIC displayed the outside world to the crew inside the CIC itself, seeing as the CIC was buried deep inside the ship and couldn't see the outside itself. The inside of the hangar appeared to be dropping away as the ship rose upwards towards and then through the now open bay doors and into the near black skies of the night.

The ship continued to ascend with the ground falling away beneath it, the skies above had been cleared of any other aircraft earlier under the guise of a nighttime test, which wasn't entirely inaccurate. It took mere minutes for the ship to reach orbit, something Caldwell would never get used to after he had watched earlier craft leaving the atmosphere take several times longer to do the same journey.

Leveling off, Caldwell was uneasy at the lack of weightlessness, or any change in weight at all. Inertial dampeners and artificial gravity were really something, the various scifi series over the years really didn't do it justice.

Over the intercom. "All stations report in."

"This is engineering, were all green here." Engineering was situated just to the rear, correction aft, of the rear generator, placing them near the main engines and Hyper-Drive. Should anything go wrong.

"This is main fire control, all systems show green." MFC was located just at the base of the ships 'neck', and directed the ship to ship weapons as well as coordinating fire with any other friendly ships.

"Damage control is ready and waiting." Damage control was located, well everywhere, though their main station was just to the front of the CIC.

"Fighter control standing by."

"Alright then, Engineering what's the status of the Hyper-Drive?"

"Ready to go, when you are commander."

"Helm?"

"Course laid in."

"Take us out."

"Yes sir." On the monitor showing what was in front of the ships, a massive blue-white tear appeared, which grew larger as the ship moved into it and into subspace. Caldwell wanted to add StarTrecks to boldly go line, but they were only going to Harvest for their shakedown run. Even after that, most of the places he was going to had probably already been visited by the SGC over the years. If someone had told him six years ago that space exploration would be done on foot he would have laughed at them. Now, now that was hard fact.

Still, there were places you couldn't go on foot, and it would be up to ships like the one he now commanded to explore those places.

_Ba'als Palace, Renvar_

It had taken way longer than it should have to finally turn his original sketch into a working design, Nerus had not helped with his mocking of the entire idea. The fact that the lesser Goa'uld had been right several times was not something Ba'al would be admitting to anyone ever.

Still with Delang finding every imaginable flaw in the original and every redesign he had made, and him not willing to drop the whole thing altogether. Eventually he had created a design that was not completely laughable, it was even capable of fighting it's way out of situations that he didn't think were possible for anything short a several dozen Jaffa. Though the real test was still to come when he sent his new vehicles, now dubbed Ground Al'kesh, into battle.

Though at least he had removed all the glaring flaws in the design during testing, who would have known that the simple change of moving the rear gun to a turret would have such a large impact on its performance.

He was brought out of his thoughts by a presence approaching. "Hello Nerus, do you have the reports I requested."

"The preparations have been made to begin producing your 'Ground Al'kesh's', I still fail to see why we need such an obscenely expensive piece of equipment. You even took away what little aesthetic value the original design had."

"And it is now infinitely more combat capable, something that will be worth more on the field of battle than aesthetics. And what would you recommend in it's place, need I remind you it can do things that would normally cost upwards of a hundred warriors to do. And at this point trained and experienced warriors are becoming rather uncommon. So tell me what your idea is, and I will consider it."

"Never mind Lord, I never took you for one who cared about the lives of your warriors."

"I don't really care, but at this point I'm starting to run out of warriors, which means I have to conserve those I have left. At that means not wasting them if I don't have to. At this point I have spare industry, which can be used to build things like this. Compared to my warrior reserves getting lower, even with the newly trained warriors joining it."

"You've made your point Lord."

"Good."

"I do however have some developments you might be interested in. I've completed the first prototype of your new warrior weapon, and the rapid cannon for your 'Ground Al'kesh.' Even I must admit it is an excellent weapon, though I still have doubts about the platform that it will be mounted on."

"Most excellent, arrange for a demonstration. I wish to see how they perform."

"As you wish Lord."

_Later, Testing grounds_

"So Nerus, this is your new weapon." Ba'al hefted the weapon in his hands, it looked similar to the rifles he had been building, with some changes. Chief among them was the lack of a bulb at the end, instead it was just a tube with an opening, second was that the whole weapon was significantly bulkier than it's predecessor.

"Yes Lord. It is more or less the same principal as your 'rifle', with several changes. First off as you may have noticed the bulb on the firing end is gone, this is mainly due to the different way in which this weapon fires compared to other Ma'tok based weapons. As we discussed before this design uses multiple pumps working in parallel rather than in series, as such the bulb was no longer needed at the end of the weapon. Instead there is the equivalent of five of them near the rear of the weapon, this equates to five shots per pull of the trigger. The tube at the end is fitted with coils which keep the shot going in a straight line and have an added side effect of increasing the maximum range the shot can achieve before dissipating."

"I see, while it sounds impressive I wish for a demonstration of it." He lifted the rifle to a firing position and took pointed it at one of the targets, if he lined up the tube with the target it would most likely hit. Still that left a lot of room for error, maybe someway to make it easier to aim...

He abandoned the train of thought and handed the weapon over to the warrior who would be doing the demonstration, still it was something to look into. The warrior stepped up to the firing position and raised the rifle to his shoulder and pointed the rifle at the first target. A quintuplet of bolts shot out of the end of the rifle and went downrange towards the target. Three of the shots missed the target while the other two hit it sending pieces of wood flying into the air.

Then without any prompting the warrior switched to the second target, which unlike the first one which had been in the open this one was behind some hastily erected wooden barriers. Of the five shots the warrior sent at the target, two missed completely, two hit the barriers and one shot actually hit it's target. The next target was actually a group of several targets in close proximity one another, and a little further back then the first two. This time all five shots hit targets, from his position he counted three different targets hit. The warrior returned the rifle upright with the end of it resting on the ground.

Stopping his mental clock, Ba'al had to admit to himself that the rifle Nerus had built was actually quite good. Having only been using the old rifle until now the warrior had manged to take out five enemy warriors in the same amount of time it would have taken the old rifle to fire three shots. Though the tallies would definitely be different in actual combat, and he still had no idea how much each one would cost. Still much better kill count than any hand-held Ma'tok weapon.

"Well you've out done yourself this time Nerus. Though I do have to ask what is it you used seeing as I'm going to need a lot of your rifles."

"Well, I had to use a separate liquid-nquadah cell for each section, and it took me several hours to put together just this one. Though there are some simplifications I can make to the design, it still is extremely complex."

"I was afraid of that. Still I'm going to see about getting them produced, they seem remarkably effective. I believe you had something else to show me as well." Out on the field a few dozen workers went about setting up the ground for the next test.

"A yes, your new rapid cannon for your 'Ground Al'kesh', I have the prototype ready. This one was simpler than the rifle. Similar design, but several times larger, and while it doesn't hit as hard as a staff cannon with each shot. It fires a lot of shots in a short period of time. I myself was surprised by how many it fires." A handful of warriors wheeled out the prototype in question, with several power conduits following behind leading back into where they had came from.

"Well, lets see what it can do." The warriors on the cannon immediately readied the cannon and after a few seconds started sending shots downrange. Ba'al had to admit that the rate of fire was impressive, he figured it was the equivalent of thirty to forty staff cannons firing nonstop. The effect on the targets was equally impressive, bits and pieces of wood were flying everywhere as the warriors swept the cannon back and forth across the field.

After about a minute the cannon stopped firing, by which time the field of targets had been reduced to splinters. "Unfortunately it overheats after sometime, I've been trying to find a work around for that, though I have yet to succeed."

Ba'al cut him off before he could continue. "A minor annoyance for a weapon that can accomplish this," he waved his hand towards the field. "Even if it can only fire for a minute or so at a time, it still can accomplish a fair amount of damage. And besides it's something that I can work with."

"I should point out that overheating causes minor damage to the internal components."

"Then we will just have to prevent overheating. Knowing you it already has the best possible cooling system, so either a time or temperature limit shut off would work best. Implementation won't be much of a problem will it Nerus."

"No it will not Lord. Though I do must ask, how do you intend to turn these new weapons of yours against?"

"A rotting domain with an incompetent for a ruler. A domain that I fear if I wait will be claimed by someone else. I'm going after Moloc, for even now his domain is on the brink of collapse."

"I see, so how soon do you intend to strike at him?"

"As soon as I have enough of these new weapons to outfit a sizable force. Then I will not stop until Moloc is dead or crushed, unless I get into another battle like Sheng'li then I will back off. I don't intend to lose my domain for a handful of worlds. But I do not believe that likely, this time around, Moloc simply does not have the fleet size that Yu does."

"I do hope your right about that, the casualty tally for Sheng'li was quite high."

_Two Weeks Later, Vere'sa, Domain of Moloc_

"Suppress those staff cannons now." Ferreti shouted over his radio as the staff cannons in question kept him and his squad pinned down. After a few seconds a machine gun started up somewhere to his left, and shortly after the staff cannons stopped raining down shots on his position. He and the others members of his squad immediately popped up and began tacking shots at the staff cannons. Three of them went silent, while half of the remaining ones swung around to where Ferreti and his squad. This whole operation had gone to hell in the past half hour, and he saw no way of salvaging it.

Over the radio, "where's our IS support. We're getting chewed up over here."

Alicia answered, "currently busy with the Jaffa army trying to get to you, and getting rid of enemy air support. So very busy at the moment." Well that was just great, pinned down by a cannon position and with the only unit with him tied up.

"Fuck," this day was going to just keep getting worse and worse wasn't it. "Everyone dig in, we're waiting for the cavalry." There were some groans but everyone seemed to accept it. Now the question became who could get here first their cavalry or the Jaffa's.

Isshta lead her fellow sisters who were apart of this raiding party through the woods. They were getting close to the base now, though the area was devoid of any Jaffa patrols which she found odd. There should have at least encountered one by now, but for some reason they hadn't encountered any, that had her worried. It meant they were planning something.

The base came into view as she crested the last hill, a fairly small place with only a barracks and a landing area for Deathgliders. Strangely there weren't any Deathgliders or any Jaffa outside of a few guards patrolling around the perimeter. A lot less then there should have been.

Her original plan had been to ambush a patrol for symbiotes, however the nearly abandoned base was a very tempting target. Though first she wanted to find out where all the Jaffa who were supposed to be stationed here were. She had forty raiders with her, while in the base at the moment was no more than fifty Jaffa. And while some of her raiders were unbloodied she would have the advantage of surprise, though that wouldn't mean much unless she could quickly dispose of the majority of the defenders.

And then there was were the rest of the garrison was, something she was extremely worried about, if she didn't move fast enough they would most likely return from whatever it was that they were doing. Still if she was fast enough she could be long gone by the time they returned, and it would embarrass Moloc to no end if one of his basses was raided without the enemy revealing themselves. And it would mean she could come back without empty hands, something she had to do.

Most of the guards were near the perimeter, if she could just take them out quickly. "Amisy and Reisa, and want you to take your groups around to the sides and wait in the trees. I will start the attack and when I do, I want your groups to take out the guards on the perimeter near you. After they are eliminated start moving in." To the entire party, "remember to stick with your group, focus your shots and don't make yourself a target." Everyone nodded, she wasn't sure about the new raiders, but that was something only experience could cure.

She waited a few minutes to give the other two groups time to get into position, then she took aim at the nearest guard, around her the other raiders did the same. After getting the best shot she figured she was going to get, she fired, a heartbeat later the raiders around her did the same.

High above the ground Alicia took a moment to observe the flow of the battle, with the Deathgliders out of the way the Jaffa on the ground were slowly getting picked to pieces. Though there were still to many of them to send people to help Ferreti. Though at the moment only her overstrength wing of IS was keeping the few hundred Jaffa on the ground from simply overwhelming Ferreti. So in a way she was helping him, just not directly.

And she had to admit the new model IS she was in was kind of awesome, even if it meant she had to have her IS core partially reset. For one thing she could take a lot more hits and she could carry the biggest IS weapon to date, she had seen the specs for it and it was insane. Though not much use to her right given that the single Al'kesh who had been hanging around was now gone, and without any HE shells to load into it there were better weapons to use at the moment.

Still it was nice to know that option was available should the need arise. Though right now a simple barrage was doing just fine, with a few units picking of isolated Jaffa. Though she was beginning to worry about her squadrons ammunition status, being squadron leader meant she could access her squadrons status. While not desperate yet, her squadron was beginning to run low on ammunition, specifically missiles and grenades. The Jaffa would be near impossible to deal with at their current numbers without them.

"Ma'am we got movement on the ground. Several groups are pulling out."

"Which way?"

"Looks like there pulling out to the north." North that was towards their base, why were they doing that? There had no one there, and it wasn't like it was any more defensible than where they were now. Still it meant she no longer had to keep them penned up.

"Beth, take your wing and go help out Ferreti, Zarech take your wing and keep tabs on the retreating Jaffa. The rest of you are with me, we're taking out those who stayed behind. And dive." She dived towards the ground and the Jaffa who were there, the remaining IS units following behind her. Plasma bolts came up to meet them, but with their poor aim they weren't very effective.

Ferreti heard a loud screeching before a loud explosion happened nearby, and from the sounds of it right where the staff cannons were. "Cavalry have arrived." Finally, he was starting to think that the staff cannons would be the end of him.

Shots stopped landing near his position. "Alright, time to kick their asses." He pocked his head up to get a view of the situation, an IS had landed squarely on top of the staff cannons position and was busy finishing up the remaining gunners. "Squad follow me." He jumped out of the hole he had been hiding in and stated moving towards the staff cannon position with his squad in a leapfrog manoeuvre.

It took them barely two minutes to clear out the remaining gunners, and without any kind of heavy support the few dozen Jaffa who had supported the position were easy to deal with. "Alright all units report in," he called out over the radio. The various squad leaders began reporting in their location and status.

After they had all reported in Ferreti mentally tallied up their casualties, twenty-six dead and another thirty injured. A lot more than had been expected for this mission, which had supposed to have been easy given how many people they were bringing. Last time he took anyone's word that a mission was going to be easy, they were the SGC after all, and anything that could go wrong would.

The base burned around her. They had managed to take it after a brief battle with the guards without anyone dying. Surprise and being concentrated had let them easily deal with the guards who had rushed them two or three at a time. It hadn't been a hard fight and they had manged to acquire almost all of the guards symbiotes, then she had begun pulling out as they set fire to the base.

It had actually been going well until warriors of Moloc started pouring over one of the nearby hills, which also had been the direction she had planned on escaping in. Which meant a retreat, through the now burning base with an ever growing number of warriors behind them. Luckily retreating through the flames meant that the incoming warriors had trouble seeing her party, which meant they couldn't fire effectively.

Unfortunately there were a lot of them with more arriving which allowed them to simply fire in mass at the base, and while not very effective was still forcing her raiders to cover. Which wasn't good, as if they stopped they were dead, so she had to go to each raider and force them to keep moving back away from the advancing warriors.

It was going to be a tough to slip away into the forest and back to the Chappa'ai, they may have to wait a few days before trying to return to Hak'tyl. That was if they could get away and every time she had to stop to get someone out of cover the chance of that happening became lower. Still it appeared that with some of them moving the remaining warriors who had stayed in cover were now beginning to leave cover and fall back. She just hopped they made it out of here in time.

She was running beside one of her raiders when a staff blast flew out of the smoke and hit them in the leg causing them to fall to the ground. She cursed silently as she went over to help them, it was a simple matter to get them back on their feet and grab what they were carrying. Foot would have been a better description though as one of their legs had nearly been shot off, thankfully the blast had fused the wound reducing the amount of blood they were loosing.

Though now that she was more or less carrying them she was covering less ground and was beginning to worry that the warriors would catch up to her before she could make it to the forest. She prayed that the smoke and flames would at least slow them down, at least enough for her to get back to the others.

It seemed someone was listening as she made it to the outer edge of the base with the forest just beyond, as well as some of her raiders who had stayed behind. Either as a rear guard or merely waiting for her she didn't know, but she was grateful for their presence. Some of whom came out of the woods towards her to help.

She almost made it to them when they tensed up and raised their staff weapons and began firing, she didn't need to look behind her to know what that meant. She drew on all her remaining strength to move as fast as she could. It wasn't enough.

An explosion to her side knocked her over and sent her charge sprawling to the side, they let out a scream as their wounded leg collapsed underneath them. She turned in the direction of the oncoming warriors and felt her heart sink, there was a swarm of them. And even with the valiant efforts of her raiders, they were still advancing, there were simply to many of them to deal with.

Thus the warriors advanced, she drew her Zat and began adding as many shots she could to the fire from the raiders. Even with her Zat bringing down the odd warrior, it wasn't enough. The warriors advanced on her and her down raider, undeterred by the fire coming from the other raiders. The lead warrior advanced on her, staff ready to finish her off, she managed to Zat him, but the one behind him came up and raised his staff.

A loud screech filled the air an instant before a mass filled the space between her and the Jaffa. An instant later the top half of the Jaffa flew to the side. The other Jaffa and her raiders all stopped firing to stare at this thing that had appeared in front of them. Larger with two arms, two legs and a pair of wings floating behind it's back, she drew in a breath of air.

She had heard rumours of the Tau'ri's angels, but she had dismissed them as mere fantasy, they seemed to far fetched to be true. She had long ago dismissed them as they delusions of those Jaffa who had faced the Tau'ri as a way to explain their defeat. Never once had she thought there to be any truth to those rumours, until it stood before her right know. Now highlighted by the fires of the base, it's grey skin reflecting the light from the fires giving it's skin an eerie orange glow. From along the edges of the wings came a soft blue-white glow, contrasting with the grey-orange of the rest of it's skin.

It's raised it's wings and thunder roared.

_Tael, Domain of Moloc_

The black space littered with glowing dots was ripped open by a blue-white tear which deposited three objects into orbit around the planet. On-board the lead Ha'tak of the formation Delang readied himself inside one of his lord Ba'als new machines, a Ground Al'kesh. His initial opinion of it from the time in the testing grounds that it was everything the speeder should have been. Fast, shielded and well armed, he felt it an honour to be the one to lead the first assault with these new weapons of war. It would mark the beginning of the end to this war, and the beginning of the reign of Ba'al as the supreme system lord.

Soon the signal came that they were being readied for drop, he and the rest of those with him today had already done multiple drops in the Ground Al'kesh to a planets surface. He admitted to himself that he had been truly terrified the first time, but repetition had removed that fear, and know he knew that each member would not feel fear as well. Their enemies however, he remembered the first time he had seen a Ground Al'kesh, yes they however would feel fear.

Soon the signal that they were being launched came, followed by a jerking of the unit before as they were released from the ship. The inertial dampeners then activated preventing any jerking as they hit the atmosphere, and from there it wouldn't be long until they were on the ground and into battle.


	23. Chapter 18-Difference of Creation

_Chapter Eighteen, Difference of Creation  
IS Academy Summer Residence, Japan, Earth, August 2015  
_Sand, every where she cleaned there was sand. She was convinced at this point that she had managed to bring the entire beach back with her. The next time someone thought it would be fun to roll around in the sand she was going to punch them in the gut. Having sand in every crevice of your body was not fun, and neither was trying to wash it, which involved even more pain. Cecelia's hadn't helped in the slightest, and had only aggravated the sand against her skin, thankfully an elbow to the stomach had been enough to get her to back off.

Still she didn't have the worst day, that went to the girl who had dumped Sasha's ice-cream on the ground had to have had the worst time. No one had figured out how Sasha manged to get them tied up and hanging from one of the volley ball net's poles by their swimsuit. Evidently some people never learnt that messing with Sasha's ice-cream is a bad idea, it may be the only thing she seems to take seriously but does she ever take it seriously.

Then there had been most of the girls crowding Ichika and Charles, it had been amusing to see the completely opposite reactions the two of them had. Ichika had managed to talk them down while Charles had done his best to hide behind Ichika. It seemed someone had difficulty dealing with an overdose of feminine attraction, not that she could really blame him, they were being rather forceful. Still amusing to watch as he tried not to come into one of their rather tight embraces. Ichika had somehow managed to talk his way out of them, somehow.

Then there had been what everyone had been wearing, or not wearing in some cases. She was fairly certain at least half of her fellow students swimsuits violated some sort of decency law. And then there was what Chifuyu wore, she felt embarrassed just looking at it, and she didn't even swing that way. Then there were people like her, Charles, Sasha, Luara and a few others who seemed to see how much they could wear and still be able to swim. Sasha took that award with her wetsuit, Charles came a close second with his swim-shirt and swim-short combination.

Then there was Ichika, she felt herself blush remembering how toned he had been, his swimsuit had only served to make it worse. She slapped herself on the cheeks to get him out of her thoughts, she had other people she was interested, and besides she didn't have any sort of chance of romance with him anyways. She decided to focus instead on finishing cleaning up.

_Later  
_She sat down for her supper at one of the tables that had been set up in the room, ignoring the traditional Japanese seating that had been set up. She couldn't figure out how people could sit, well kneel, while trying to eat, it wasn't something that she could ever imagine trying to do that. But it seemed her opinion was not shared by the majority of the students here as every one of those seats was filled. Not that she was complaining as it left the actual tables relatively empty.

She had been enjoying her meal, pretty amazing considering how bland it was, when she felt a presence across the table from her and a pair of eyes boring into her. She simply ignored it, wasn't worth the effort to get rid of them.

After about a minute of the eyes boring into her, "Ahem. You now it's rude to ignore someone, should have known better what to expect from a yank." Why was she of all people bugging her now, it wasn't like she ever bothered them. "HEY, are you listening at all."

"Tone it down will ya, not everyone needs to hear your mouth running."

"The nerve off you. Well at least you can respond, that was more than I was expecting."

"Can you please just leave, your irritating me." What was with Laura, she had been going out of her way to target her ever since she lost in the individual tournament.

"Hmm, impatience the badge of a yank. Very well I came here to challenge you to a duel to regain my lost honour, and to prove once and for all who is superior."

"I decline."

"WHAT!, you, you can't just decline, I challenged you to a duel you have to accept."

"No I don't, and anyways I don't have a personal IS at the moment, so it wouldn't even be the kind of fight you want."

"But, but you have to, don't you have any honour at all."

She let out of sigh, so much for her nice relaxing bland supper. "There is nothing that makes me have to accept so I'm not going to, besides I don't see the point to it anyways."

"How can you not see the point, are you blind or something!" She simply looked back down at her now almost cold supper and continued eating before it became completely cold. She didn't see Laura become absolutely furious, or Laura reaching down to her plate. The first sign something was wrong was her plate coming up to meet her face along with the remains of her supper.

She felt her rage boil up as she looked up to where Laura was partially leaning over the table looking pleased with herself. She pulled back her arm and punched Laura in the face, her fist came back with a few specks of blood on it, while Laura stumbled backwards.

She then learnt a few things about punching without any gloves on, the first thing was that it hurt her fingers, a lot. She had to pull back her hand and flex her fingers a few times to make sure nothing was broken. The next thing was that hitting something hurt her wrist, it felt as though someone had just stepped on it.

She was still examining her hand when Laura returned the favour. She then learned that being punched in the face by a bare fist was different from being punched by someone wearing a glove. For one, knuckles were pretty hard, she was fairly certain one of her teeth was missing. And knuckles had a lot less surface area than gloves did, which equated to the point of impact hurting a lot more than she had ever remembered.

The hit caused her to fall over backwards onto the ground. She sprung back up and launched herself over the table at Laura, swinging her fist as she came down, while Laura swung up at her. Her fist struck Laura in the jaw as Laura's fist hit her on the forehead. She stumbled back into the table she had just leaped over, while Laura stumbled back towards the low tables.

She charged Laura striking her in the center of the chest with her arm outstretched, while Laura's arm was to short to reach her. The impact sent Laura stumbling further back, however Laura quickly came back at her with both fists swinging. She managed to block Laura's attack and use her longer reach to force Laura back.

Through a series of feints she managed to get Laura almost on top of the short table, sensing the advantage she moved in. And overextended herself allowing Laura to get in a solid hit, causing her to back up a few steps. She felt something loose in her mouth so she spit it out, and out came one of her teeth root and all, well that was just great she would need to see a dentist after this.

Laura came at her launching a fist at her face again, she stepped back before striking out with her own fist towards Laura's chest. Her longer reach meant that she forced Laura back without getting hit herself, now if she could just keep this up she would have this fight.

Striking out again she was surprised when Laura grabbed her arm and pulled, she felt her rear foot lift off the ground as Laura brought an elbow up to her face. However Teal'c had taught her how to deal with situations like this. Kicking with her now airborne leg at Laura's shin she caused the other girl to lose her grip on her hand as she shifted to deal with the result of her kick. She then lashed out with her arm driving Laura back until she fell over backwards on one of the low tables.

Laura sprang right back up and was about to charge at her when a pair of hands inserted themselves between the two of them. "I think that's enough you two." Ichika glared at Laura first and then her, "is this the way the two of you want your countries to be represented to the world." Well it wasn't technically her country, or even her planet for that matter.

Laura pointed her finger at her, "she started it."

"I don't care who started it I'm ending this here before it goes any farther, now both of you apologize."

Before she could say anything Laura snapped at Ichika, "why should I even listen to you, your every breath stains Orimura's name." Well that, was unexpected, still useful to know for further down the line, Laura turned her gaze on her. "And you, why won't you simply accept the duel, then I can defeat you honorably rather than having to resort to this barbaric form of fighting." One of Ichika's palms collided with is face.

"I think I can see the problem now," he turned his gaze to Laura, "you really have the completely wrong idea about my sister."

"Speaking of your sister, wouldn't she normally show up for something like this." She asked.

"Good point, I have no idea where she is." He replied.

_Mall a fair distance away  
_Chifuyu let out a sneeze as she walked towards the mall, she had supposed to have been meeting Tabanae at the station, but the other woman hadn't been there. So she had just carried on, besides Tabanae would show eventually, she would just have to be ready for what was going to happen afterwords.

_IS Academy Summer Residence  
_"Still she normally shows up for something like this."

"I'm surprised as well, but this also means that the two of you have a chance to fix this before she has to get involved. I highly recommend you do that."

She thought that was really a good idea, Laura had other ideas. "Are you suggesting you plebeian that I apologize to this Yank, you are really pushing your luck. Not only to you have the gaul to be her little brother and cause to act weird, you also think you have the right to force me to do something..."

Whatever Laura was about to say was loudly interrupted by someone coughing rather loudly, the three of them turned to see Sasha sitting on her knees in front of the now destroyed table. "That. Was. My. Ice-cream. And now it's gone." She looked at Laura and Laura looked at her before the two of them left the room as fast as they could. Hoping Sasha would follow the other.

Ichika watched as the two girls left the dinning room as fast as they could, before turning to the person who had caused them to leave. "That was unnecessarily cruel, and they aren't serving ice-cream tonight anyways."

"I know that, you know that, but the two of them didn't and neither of them bothered check in their rush to leave. I just don't see why your making a big deal out of it."

"They're eventually going to find each other and continue fighting, I had that under control."

"Keep kidding yourself about that, the only way those two are going to sort this out is with fists."

He let out a sigh, "do you take some form of perverse pleasure in torturing her?"

"I don't know who or what you're talking about." And with that she turned and left. He left to go find the other two before they killed each other. Oh who was he kidding he would have to stop them before one of them ended up dead, most likely Cassandra given that she didn't have an IS at the moment.

Cassandra stopped to let herself get a breath of air, she was fairly sure that she was far enough away from Sasha for now. She clutched her jaw as another bout of pain went through it, she hadn't remembered loosing a tooth being so painful. Then again this was the first time she had lost a tooth by having it punched out of her. Still it hurt more than it should have, which was not at all for her.

She needed to get to the nurses office and soon, before she did something to make it worse than it already was. She wandered down the hallways trying to figure out where she was in relation to the rest of the school and where the nurses office was. You would think that whoever built the school would have used more than one simple design for their hallways.

She was walking up to a corner when Laura rounded it, she quietly made her way to the nearest doorway trying to make a discrete escape. Her escape however was noticed, "HEY, get back here." Well so much for discrete, time for plan B, run like hell.

And as it turned out Laura was also a fairly fast runner, and while she could have probably outrun the shorter girl on open ground, in the confined hallways Laura was gradually gaining on her. So then, time for plan C, beat them until they give up, the last thing she wanted to try on someone who had undergone military training. So she would have to stun Laura then make a run for it, probably the only thing that would work.

Stopping quickly she spun and swung her fist at Laura, who was surprised at the sudden change in tactics and nearly ran into her fist. However a last second dip to the right prevented that, it however let Cassandra get her leg into Laura's back sending the smaller girl into the opposite wall. Which incidentally left her time to make a run for it, she felt bad for leaving Laura there but made up for it in that the girl was probably picking herself up to come after her.

She turned the corner and started to look for the first doorway she could find, she wanted to see if she could hide and wait for Laura to go by before resuming her search. "Get back here!" And the race was on, she rushed down the corridor and opened the first door she reached, confidently the only door in the corridor. Muttering a silent prayer for the door not to be locked and for her to not be walking in on anything she reached for the doorknob.

Thankfully it was unlocked and on the other side of the door the room was dark. As quickly and quietly as she could she closed the door and took a position beside the door, the perfect place to be if Laura did see where she went. She felt around a bit for a light switch but couldn't find one, a loss but hopefully she wouldn't need it.

And as it turned out she would need it as Laura came bursting through the door moments later, and Laura moved to fast for her to get in a quick hit. Still Laura's back was to her which allowed her to attack from behind. She tried to hit Laura from behind only to have the other girl reach back and grab her arm and throw her over and slam her into the ground. It was at that point that she had the strangest question pop into her head, as Laura made her next move. Who turned on the lights?

_Area Fifty-One  
_"Dr. Carter report to bay three immediately, I repeat Dr. Carter report to bay three immediately." Carter quietly groaned as the message repeated itself as the low level local alarm sounded through out the section of the base she was currently in. She had been hoping to finally grab some sleep, though it appeared that would have to wait. So she turned and began heading back to bay three...

Wait wasn't that where the Blitz was? She broke off into a dead run, something was happening and chances were that she was the only one who deal with it before it got out of control.

She burst into the bay three control room. "What's going on?"

"Blitz just started up."

"Has it done anything else?"

"No." Well that was weird. "Have you tried shutting it down." They probably did, but it was better to make sure.

"Yes we have, it's not responding. The start up originated from the core itself, which we can't access."

"Someone remotely activated it." Tabanae most likely, though what was she after... Stupid question, every scrap of information on the base. "Disconnect it from all networks, manually if you have to, but disconnect it. Also deploy the restraining clamps." The technicians got to work, now with any luck it wouldn't try and break free.

_IS Academy Summer Residence  
_Cassandra rolled out of the way to avoid Laura's foot coming down on her before springing back up to a standing position. She settled herself into one of the guard position and did her best to figure out her next move, Laura didn't seem to be directly looking at her which she found odd. Instead her one visible eye was swinging back and forth scanning the area as she settled into a combat stance.

"Typical hiding when you should be fighting," she readied for Laura to attack her but was surprised when instead Laura just stood there.

"Maybe I don't want to fight you, and just want to eat a meal in peace."

"Tch, how can you be so simple." She needed to end this soon before Laura started infecting her with stupidity. Probably to late but she could stop it from getting any worse than it already was.

She charged forwards her fist going for Laura's stomach. "I prefer simple to your way of thinking, you will only find disappointment with your way."

"Shut up! You don't know what you're talking about this is the only way for a warrior to live. Battle is as a constant companion, some thing you will never be able to appreciate." Laura caught her fist before it could make contact, then Laura looked up at her and grinned.

That smile disappeared replaced by a look of sheer surprise when she felt her fist hit something. Laura then fell back a few meters, she didn't think she could have hit Laura that hard. But she quickly dismissed it as she now had Laura on the ground, and her path to the door open. All she could see beyond the door was a bright light, but it was her way out... and it looked like someone else was there.

She made it halfway to the door before the world exploded in bright light.

Ichika turned on the lights in the gym, he had no idea why the two girls hadn't turned on the lights, but he had long ago given u on trying to make sense of Laura's actions. He was still surprised that Cassandra hadn't turned them on. Unfortunately none of that helped him decipher the current scene in front of him. Both of them were on the ground clutching some part of their body, Laura was gripping her stomach, while Cassandra held her head. Charles ran up beside him, it was good knowing he had someone he trusted and Laura didn't hate tagging along for this.

It looked like he would need the support, at least to get them from trying to kill each other afterwords. Charles went over to where Laura was moaning on the ground, while he went over to Cassandra who was in the process of returning to her feet. Extending his hand, "How you feeling?"

"Fine, now that the white lights are gone, what did you do, throw a flash-bang in here?"

"I turned on the lights."

She looked at him weirdly, "the lights were already on?" That was weird, because he distinctly remembered turning them on.

He was about to ask her what she meant when a coughing fit drew both of their attentions to Laura, who was leaning up against Charles for support. Laura trying to glare at Cassandra but between her clutching her stomach and her coughing she could only manage the occasional glare. "Just how hard did you hit her?"

"Pretty hard from the looks of it."

Laura coughed a few times, "you.. didn't actually... hit me. I.. stopped... your fist. Just what... did you do to... me." A coughing fit cut off whatever else she was going to say.

"Loos like she'll need to see the nurse, probably a doctor, but we'll start with a nurse for now..."

Laura spoke up, "you shouldn't... have been able to... beat me, I was... trained by... instituter."

"If you mean my sister, well she isn't invincible..."

"Yes she is, there is... nothing... that can.. beat instructor, her only... weakness... is you." He let out a sigh as Laura began dissolving into a rant about his sister. She should really just let it go.

Before he could say anything Cassandra spoke up, "Teal'c beat Ms. Orimura. And Teal'c was the one who taught me how to fight." Laura looked up at Cassandra, tears beginning to form at her eye. "Your instructor isn't as invincible as you believe. No matter how good you are there is always someone better."

"Liar," Laura shouted at Cassandra, "instructor couldn't... have lost." Cassandra just locked eyes with Laura. "No... no... then.. what.. have I been doing... All... this time... I was... just... chasing.. after... a... illusion..." Tears stremed out of Laura's eye as she began laughing in-between coughs and words.

Charles managed to get Laura moving, leading her out of the door and down the hallway and towards the nurses office. As Laura's coughs faded into the distance he turned to face Cassandra. "I hope she'll be fine, you must have hit her pretty hard."

"She started it.." Cassandra raised a had to her mouth while letting out a moan of pain.

"I thought you said you were okay?"

"She knocked a tooth out."

"Then it looks like you'll have to see the nurse as well." He truly wondered when the representative candidates would stop picking random fights with each other.

_Shopping Mall_  
Chifuyu followed Tabanae into the near abandoned food court of the mall that they had decided to go to on their 'date'. Truthfully it was more two friends spending some time together but Tabanae wanted to refer to it as a date. And they were married so it wasn't like it wasn't the wrong term to use anyways. She just wished people would stop staring at them, Tabanae wasn't even recognizable with her current dress. Were people really that surprised to see two women going shopping together, it wasn't like they had really acted like a couple during their visit, had they?

In the end there was nothing she could do about it, and it wasn't like it was actually affecting them, she didn't even think Tabanae noticed the stares. They eventually made it to the food court where they found a table in one of the high-class restaurants. One of the reasons she had chosen this particular restaurant was that food was brought to the table which meant she could keep an eye on Tabanae, and their purchases. The only way to insure there would be no problems.

Though she could still feel the stares from the people around them. "I wonder why they're looking at us."

"Who do you mean?"

"Ahh, nothing. Just thinking out loud that is all." Great now Tabanae was suspicious, never a good thing.

Tabanae just let out a sigh. "If you mean all the people from the various official and unofficial spy agencies, security groups, business men, scientific group representatives, terrorists, and government officials. And they've been watching us this whole time, honestly what does it take to get a little privacy, don't those people realize they're making it impossible for me to make out with you." That was a good thing in her mind.

At that point the waiter came up and got their order, the waiter then left, presumably to get their order, but something about their behaviour made her paranoid. Who Tabanae said was around only made her paranoia worse. Discreetly looking around she noticed that Japanese only made up about a sixth of the people around her, which meant Tabanae was right about who was watching them. It only made here was her more nervous as she had been hoping for an uneventful evening.

Of course she was with Tabanae so the chances of that happening had been low in the first place, but she could still wish.

It didn't take as long as she expected for their food to arrive and after paying the waiter she and Tabanae started to eat. They made it about halfway through their meal exchanging small talk when there was a commotion at the entrance of the food court. A group of about thirty or forty men were crowding the entrance, preventing anyone from leaving through there. She looked to the other exits to find that the largest ones had slightly smaller groups at them.

The biggest change was the level of tension in the people around them, this was not going to end well, and she would admit to herself that at the moment she was really scared. But it wouldn't due to have Tabanae realize that.

A handful of the men near the front of each group were scanning the crowd of people looking for someone. Then she met one of their eyes, his eyes widened in recognition, and one thought went through her mind. 'SHIT'.

He motioned to several of the men near by and they all started moving into the food court, the rest of their group began moving in behind them. They went about a dozen steps with almost all the eyes in the food court watching them before their leader reached into his jacket. "KILL THE BITCH." His hands came out holding a sub-machine gun. He made it about three steps before he fell with several bullet holes in him. The people he had been leading had already drawn out their own weapons and had begun shooting at the people who had killed their leader.

However it seemed as though every person in the food court had brought a weapon with them. The people in the front of the mob went down under a hail of bullets. And for a time it seemed as though the people already in the food court would be able to hold back the mob.

However it was not to be, "FOR THE PRESERVATION OF OUR BLUE AND PURE WORLD." The mob surged forwards using their warriors weapons to gun down the people in the food court. From above a handful of people who she had ignored earlier were busy firing down into the mob, and she spotted several people tacking cover near the washrooms. It had truly became a mess.

However she wasn't sticking around to see how it ended. She and Tabanae grabbed their meagre purchases and made their way to the restaurant where they had gotten their food from. The people who had been at the counter had vanished which let her and Tabanae get to the back of the restaurant and out through the service entrance.

From there they made their way up a set of stairs to the roof of the mall. From there the sounds of the battle below sounded muted though they could still hear it ragging below. She idilly wondered if the people fighting it realized the one they were all after was missing. At least for the time being they could rest and figure out what to do next.

However their rest was interrupted by the wind blowing towards them and an IS unit, which she didn't recognize, descending from the skies. Damn there was no way she could hope to take on an IS while trying to keep Tabanae safe.

She was not expecting Tabanae to begin walking up to the descending IS, standing just a few meters from it when it landed on the malls roof. "My lady, are you hurt." She knew that voice from somewhere, she just couldn't remember where.

"You needn't worry about me. However I must ask what Phantom Task intends to do here. I believe I have already made it clear that I have no intention of joining you."

"Please reconsider my lady, as the events of tonight have proven there are far to many people who wish you harm to go without any protection."

She advanced to just behind Tabanae, ready to get her out of the way should the IS decide to attack, for all the good it would do. "I do not require your protection," Tabanae swung her arm back to so her hand was just infront of her chest, "I have all the protection I need right here."

"But..." Whatever they were going to say was cut off as she pulled Tabanae back at the same time as they stepped back as well, looking to the side at where one of the stairs from below came to the roof. She could make a figure standing by the door leading out of the stair well. "Get back my lady."

"Well I must admit this is not what I expected to encounter here. Still it was not unexpected." She was surprised at how clam he seemed, she made sure that he couldn't hope to hit Tabanae from where he was. "Miss Shinonon I represent a group called the NID, we have interest in acquiring your unique skill set. You would of course receive payment for your services."

"Not interested." Tabanae's response was quick and to the point. "Just about every group on the planet is willing to offer me that, so unless you have something to interest me I have better things to do."

"I see, well then. While I can't tell you very much unless you accept the job," Tabane scowled, "you may find this interesting." He pulled something out of his pocket and tossed it in a high arc to Tabanae.

Tabanae made out the glass cylinder as it tumbled end over end through the air. She quickly grabbed it before Chifuyu caught it. The first thing she noticed about it was how much it weighed, a lot more than it should have, the second thing she noticed was the piece of black metal inside of the tube. If what she was feeling was right, then whatever was in this tube was extremely dense, probably heavier than most heavy elements. She would need to have a closer look at this, his offer might actually warrant some attention. "So what is your answer?"

"I'll consider your offer." She quickly put the tube into storage, it would prevent anything happening to it while she got it back to where she could study it.

Chifuyu gave her a look, "Tabanae, what are you do-"

"I said I would consider it. That doesn't mean I've accepted, yet." Chifuyu remained silent as she turned her attention back to the man, ignoring the IS who was being annoying. At least they hadn't done anything stupid yet.

"I see, very well then, we will await your decision." With that he turned back to the stairwell and went back down. She felt Chifuyu relax slightly beside her as she and Chifuyu turned to the IS who was still standing on the roof.

"So what will you do now." She posed the question, she still wasn't sure why Phantom Task was still following her around, she had made it quite clear she didn't need them.

"Should have killed him."

"No you shouldn't have, he gave me something interesting." Chifuyu gave her a quizzical look, she signalled to Chifuyu to leave it for later. "And any rate you have no further reason to be here. I'm sure your masters would want to hear from you."

"Tch, fine, but we will not let up in your protection." The wind picked up as she lifted off into the night sky.

"And now Chifuyu, I'll need access to the research equipment at the academy, I'd rather not bring this," the glass tube appeared in her hand, "back to my personal lab just yet." Chifuyu merely nodded her head.

_Next Morning, Infirmary, IS Academy Summer Residence  
_Cassandra had to resist the urge to bite down as one of the nurses who specialized in dentistry had several instruments in her mouth looking at her teeth. Unfortunately they hadn't had the time yesterday as most of them had been fussing over Laura. And given that she wasn't that badly hurt she had been given a cursory examination and some pills for the pain, and then sent off to bed with orders to return in the morning.

And so she was here laying on her back while the nurse looked at her teeth. "Well it looks like you only lost the crown, the root is still there, we'll book you into a dentist for later today to get it done. We'll call you back here when it's been arranged." The nurse helped her up then lead her to the door, the whole while Cassandra was trying to figure out what sounded off in what the nurse said.

_Later  
_Chifuyu walked into the nurses office, she had been gone just a few hours, a few hours and two of her students had gotten into a fight. Both of who required some degree of medical attention. And that wasn't even including what had happened when she had gone out. Honestly she should have just stayed here, everything would have been better.

She sat down across from the nurse, the desk between them was covered in papers, she had no clue as to what most of them were. "Well, you wanted to see me."

"Yes, it concerns Laura Bodewig and Cassandra Fraiser." The two people who had fought last night, she suspected Laura had done some provoking before hand and Cassandra had responded, poorly. "I'll start with Ms. Bodewig's since what happened to her is fairly straightforwards. From what I have been able to find out, it seems she suffered blunt trauma to most, if not all the organs in her stomach area."

"I thought you said straightforwards that seems a little complicated. I mean how would you even go about doing something like that in the first place, and then finding out about it afterwords?"

"Compared to Ms. Fraiser it is. And there are ways to find internal injuries without opening the patient up, though I can't be certain unless I do. Though in her case I think that will be unnecessary as she hasn't displayed any sort of complications from her injuries. And unless she does I believe letting her recover normally is the best course of action, given her origins."

"I see, and if she does develop complications?"

"Then we take a closer look, but unless that happens we're probably going to make it harder for her if we try to take a closer look."

"I see, very well then, but do keep an eye on her will you, knowing her she'll try and push herself, which will most likely make things worse." The other woman merely nodded. "And Ms. Fraiser?" If this made what happened to Laura straightforwards then she was extremely interested.

"No where near as simple as Ms. Bodewig. First off, while she wasn't badly injured at all when she arrived, there is what happened to her with a nights rest. Along with what Mr. Orimura mentioned." She raised her eyebrow at that, just what had that idiot said? "When she got here last night, one of her teeth was completely gone, that much I could be sure of. This morning when we checked back up on it, there was a tooth root. Right where she lost the tooth, root and all."

"That is interesting, I'm going to assume that's not all you have to tell me, is it."

"No it isn't. Once I saw that, I managed to get one of her sample and started running every test I could think of on it. This is what I found." She took a sheet from one of the piles and pushed it in front of her, she couldn't make any sense of it. "It a mass spectrometry readout from some heavy metal I found in her blood. Not only is it extremely heavy, but it also does not match any know element, I don't know how heavy it is, but if I had to guess I would say heavier than anything ever discovered."

"That's quite a claim."

"I know, and I wouldn't be making it unless every other option had been closed. I have her blood sample being put through a DNA test, but that will take some time."

"So to summarize, we have a girl who has abnormal regeneration, healing or regrowth, whatever you want to call it, who also has an unknown metal present in her blood."

"More or less, though I should point out that the metal is only a trace amount."

"That still doesn't explain what happened to Ms. Bodewig."

"No it doesn't, though Mr. Orimura, did note that they were fighting in a completely dark room, and Ms. Fraiser was temporarily blinded when the lights came on. Don't know if it means anything though."

"Follow it up as well, I'll see what I can do from my end." She got up and made her way to the door, but stopped before leaving. "And one other thing, keep this as low profile as possible, I don't want this going international until we have more information." The woman nodded her head. Now she had to go deal with one genetically engineered soldier, and one potentially genetically engineered warrior. Suddenly Tabanae's theories seemed less insane, she had to suppress a shudder.

_Several Days Later  
_Cassandra let out a sigh as she sat at her desk as her teacher went on about something physics related, that Carter had taught her years ago. All the while wishing to be somewhere else as the heat continued to increase, she was fairly certain that she would start stinking fairly soon if this kept up. She would never understand why they insisted in teaching during the summer, why couldn't they at least wait until the heat dropped a little first.

Suddenly a commotion by the window drew everyone's attention, the girls not seated by the window got up and went over to see what it was, she joined them. Outside Ichika was carrying Charles in a bridal carry as he ran as fast as he could. While being chased by Laura who was wielding a rather large knife.

Someone opened up a window so that they could try to hear what was going on. From down below she could hear Laura yelling out, "give me back my wife." Her mind spent several seconds processing what was going on with what she heard, wasn't Charles a guy? Or was there some secret she wasn't aware off.


	24. Chapter 19-Options

_Chapter Nineteen, Options  
SGC, Earth, April 2015  
_Ferreti exited the event horizon of the stargate and proceed to walk down the ramp leading from it. He was glad to be finally back on earth for some much needed rest and relaxation after the absolute clusterfuck that had been the Vere'sa. Hammond was there waiting for him at the bottom of the ramp, he hoped it was so the General could talk to him before the debriefing, because honestly he didn't want to contemplate any of the alternatives reason's why.

"Welcome back. From what I hear you had an eventful trip." Behind him Alicia stepped out of the event horizon.

"That's putting it mildly sir. I take it you have everything ready here." Alicia walked up beside him and gave a quick nod to Hammond.

"Yes I do, though before we begin the conference I would like to speak to the two of you." Hammond led the two of them to one of the doors to the gate room.

He came up alongside Hammond. "So what happened this time, did the organic excrement hit the rotary prop."

Hammond turned to him with a half smile on his face. "I'm afraid that's not the case. This time the metric tone of waste hit a turbo jet fan." That did not sound good. Behind them Ishta and several other members of the Hak'tyl exited the gate. What had been planned as a simple raid to acquire several items, had turned into a full on rescue operation, something he wasn't used to doing. And the few previous times he had done it, he had been getting SG1 out of some weird situation. Seriously how bad many times did it take before they understood that there were things you just plain did not mess with.

"I'm probably going to regret this, but what happened this time? Was it SG1, or something else this time." Both men turned to Alicia.

Hammond answered her, "it wasn't SG1 this time, though I guarantee you Kinsey will find someway to blame it on them." That wasn't unusual. "I will be giving full details to both of you shortly." Figures.

Hammond lead him and Alicia into the conference room, right above the gate control room. Seated around the central table was every SG team leader, whatever had happened it was big. He and Alicia took their seats, still dressed in their gear that they had arrived with, whatever had happened had to have been pretty serious. Then Major Davis walked in and Ferreti's hearth sank, disaster Davis was just icing on the cake at this point.

Davis cleared his throat as the projector turned on. "Roughly at the same time as the raid on Ver'sa, Ba'al forces entered Moloc's territory en mass." What made this different, other than whose domain he had just raided. "While we would ignore this for the most part outside of intelligence briefs, what happened on Tael is a definite cause for concern." The projector turned on, the image displayed looked to be that of a Ha'tak taken at considerable distant. "The Tok'ra gave this footage to us after one of their operatives inside Moloc's domain witnessed this."

From the sides of the Ha'tak several bulbous shapes detached themselves and began falling towards the planet. After several seconds shields flared around the shapes as they hit the atmosphere with the shield protecting them. This continued for what seemed like several minutes, until the shields disappeared as the shapes began their final stage of descent. Nothing noteworthy happened, and the shapes disappeared beneath the horizon. He had been half expecting a gigantic explosion, it would certainly fit with everything the SGC had seen over the years.

The video fast forwarded for a few seconds until the same shapes could be seen approaching, in more detail now. He could make out several things that looked like sticks poking out of it, in front of it were several defensive positions. As the object approached one of the defenders position, and from the end of the sticks poured a stream of plasma bolts, which alone was worrying. What happened when incoming fire was absorbed by the shields worried him even more, then it spat out even more plasma bolts eliminating the next defensive position. So not only was it well shielded but it's armament was nothing the Goa'uld had ever deployed before.

Then the it got close enough for Ferreti to make out a small bulbous shape on top of it, complete with it's own stick. Then the bulb turned to the side separate from the rest of the object and sent a stream of fire down onto a defending position. Someone then put voice to what everyone in the room was probably thinking. "Holy shit, is that a Goa'uld _Tank_."

"From everything we have seen so far it is." The image kept going but the center of attention had shifted.

"Took them long enough." Several of the team leaders from around the table chucked, trust O'Neill to crack a joke at a time like this. Even Hammond let out a low chuckle, Davis however didn't seem impressed.

Davis cleared his throat before continuing, "two other of Molocs worlds have fallen to these tanks. So far there have been only five counts of them being disabled, three of which were done using massed Death-Glider attacks. One was taken out via an Al'Kesh ramming it, while only one was taken out with massed fire. At the moment we have no reliable way to take them out. And as such any planet deemed at risk to being attacked is off limits to SG teams for the time being."

"So what will that mean for our off-world missions?"

"For now at least there will be no more new ones given out until we have a better grasp on what is happening. After that we will return to our planet by planet evaluation method. And while we currently have no way of taking them out we are looking at options."

Someone down the table from Ferreti spoke up, "do we know how strong these things shields are? Are we looking at something Al'kesh grade or capital ship grade. Because I'm fairly certain that if their only Al'kesh grade shields, our standard SAM weapons should be able to bring one down."

"While we have been doing our best to learn that, all footage we ahve places their shields close to those used by an Al'kesh or Tel'ka. Though of more concern is the weapons load-out carried by each one. Final count is six repeating staff _cannons_, five of them in sponsons and the last one in a turret on top. From available footage anyone trying to engage one of them from the front won't last long, and the turret allows them to engage targets coming from the rear.."

"Any good news, or do we not have any of that yet?"

"We do have some good news, or what we think are vulnerabilities in the design. First off, from what we have been able to deduce from the available information is that it can't target targets above it or below it, as well as the turret can't hit objects directly behind it. While we can be sure of these vulnerabilities, we also have theorized that it's weapons accuracy is limited at long range."

"Do we know that for sure?"

"No, but it is an assumption we are going with for now, given past performance of Goa'uld weapons. And we are looking at what is a rapid fire weapon, and unless Ba'al has implemented some form of fire control it is unlikely that the can even shoot at distant targets effectively."

"That's quite a lot of assumptions."

"All of which we can be fairly sure off."

"It still leaves more room than I'm comfortable with." When Davis didn't answer, it told Ferreti everything he needed to know.

There was still one question he wanted answered, and it mainly had to do with whom he had run into on his latest mission. "How will this affect our interactions with the Hak'tyl, given that their territory is right in the line of fire." Most of the gathered officers would have no idea what he was talking about, however e expected Davis to have been at least briefed. Given that he given all the information he had to Hammond, whom he was fairly certain had passed it on.

"On the Hak'tyl, we will still be doing the planned diplomatic meeting, however this will impact the direction those negotiations take." He did not take that as a good sign, negotiations doomed to failure before they even truly began. "Will there be any other questions." A few moments of silence went by. "Very well then, you will each be receiving a packet with a that we know about Ba'als new weapon by the end of the day." Dismissed."

The officers around the table began getting up and heading for one of the various exits around the room, while exchanging small talk. Hammond motioned for him and Alicia to remain seated. It didn't take long for the other officers to clear the room.

Davis and Hammond had stayed behind along with him and Alicia. "Well, I've read the initial reports, and I must say that was a remarkable way to turn a bad situation to our advantage. Though I don't know how we'll be able to take advantage of it at the moment." Hammond was the first to speak.

"While I can sympathize with the Hak'tyl, there is the practical side to things we have to consider. We still don't know what they can offer us, and their impact on the galactic scale has been rather small." That was a rather cold way of putting things.

"With all due respect we can't simply abandon them. Ishta has connections within Moloc's government, she could get us a lot. Then we can't also forget the propaganda value of having her join the rebellion. It may be all it takes for others to defect, she is a high ranking priestess after all, and any high priest or priestess in the empire has a lot of sway." The three men turned to look at Alicia, each of them processing what she had just said.

"Those are certainly points that will have to be considered for the negotiations."

"The other thing that will have to be considered is what we can offer them." The other three turned to him, it seemed to be a question that was often overlooked for negotiations.

"That is something else that will have to look into."

"And one more thing," Hammond looked at Alicia, "can you please drop your IS unit in the maintenance area."

"Yes sir, any particular reason?"

"Someone hacked into a IS unit at area fifty-one, we're doing checks of all units currently under our command to see just how many were affected." Alicia nodded. "Good, then I want the two of you back in here in an hour for the negotiations with the Hak'tyl." He and Alicia stood up and saluted Hammond and Davis before leaving.

_Later  
_Ishta walked along the grey corridors marked with colours following their 'guide', along with the other members of the Hak'ty who had accompanied her to the Tau'ri's homeworld. Truthfully she had expected something grander from the world that had killed Ra, and remained independent of the other system lords. The bleak grey walls did not suit the center of resistance to the Goa'uld empire.

She and the other Hak'tyl were lead into a room dominated by a large wooden table, with a window on one side of the room looking out over the Chappa'ai. Strange looking chairs were arranged around the table, some of which on the side closest to the window were occupied, while the opposite side was open, most likely where she and her group were supposed to sit. She wondered if it held any significance?

She recognized one of the men already seated at the table, he had been the one who had been in charge of the group who she had run into, and then been saved by. She was worried that only one other woman was present, and one she didn't recognize, the others seated were an old man and several other men. One man was standing near the head of the table, he gestured for them to sit on the unoccupied side of the table.

As she and the other Hak'tyl took their seats she noticed that their 'guide' had disappeared, evidently they were not required for what was to come. When she sat down she found the chairs to be quite comfortable, not unlike what one would find in Goa'uld throne room. Evidently they took this meeting seriously.

After everyone had been seated the man at the head of the table cleared his throat, getting all those seated to focus on him. "I believe that the first order of business should be to introduce our selves, seeing as most of us have not met before. I am Major Paul Davis." He gestured his hands to the man seated next to him, the old one.

"General George Hammond, I apologize for not being able to greet you when you arrived, something had come up that needed to be dealt with. I am in charge of this facility."

The next man in line spoke up, she didn't recognize him. "Colonel Charles Kawalski."

The next one she recognized, he had been the one in charge of the force who had rescued her and her warriors. "Colonel Louis Ferreti." There was that name again, did he share some relation to the man beside him? They certainly didn't look anything alike.

The next was the only woman present outside of her own raiders. "Major Alicia Doucette." Again a similar name, did she have some relation to the man who was still standing.

The man at the end of the table was the last to introduce himself. "Ambassador Donnel Udina."

With all of them introduced, she began introducing all of her raiders beginning with herself. "Ishta, to my right are Neith and Mala, to my left are Ny'sa and Nictal."

The man at the head of the table nodded, "now that we have that done I believe you had an offer for us."

"Yes we do, we had had hopped to be able to form an alliance with the people of Tau'ri." They did not seem surprised by the request at all, she figured she was hardly the first to ask it of them.

"That is what we invited you here to discuss. While we can't offer much, what we can offer may be of great use to your people." She had not been expecting that. "Of course, we will need at least your cooperation." That was the minimum she had been expecting them to ask.

"And what is it you have to offer? My people need symbiotes and food, without them we will be unable to do anything in a few short months."

"We can help with both of those," both? Though she supposed they may have some symbiotes around.

"Yes, food is easy enough, though we will let it be inspected by one of your people first. Symbiotes are a bit more complicated."

"How so?" How could it be complicated? They either had them or not.

"While we do not have symbiotes, we do have something know as tretonin that can replace a symbiote. Meaning that those Jaffa who use tretonin do not require a symbiote." Was such a thing possible? Did they know that for certain, or was it just something they had created? She needed answers.

"That is a bold claim. But what proof do you have that this tretonin does as you say. Many have claimed to be able to do such a thing but none have succeeded."

"We have several dozen Jaffa using it at the moment, none of them have experienced any differences from having a symbiote."

"Would it be possible to meet several of these Jaffa?"

"It can be arranged."

"That is good. Though I must also ask what other aid you can offer, as we are currently fighting against Moloc and his armies."

"That may not be a problem for much longer." The woman on the other side spoke up, the man at the head of the table turned to look at her. "We were going to need to tell them eventually."

"May I inquire as to what it is?"

The man at the head of the table spoke, "around the same time as the fight at Vere'sa, forces belonging to Ba'al crossed the border into Moloc's domain. Since then close to a dozen worlds have fallen." She had not been expecting that.

"That does not bode well. But a dozen worlds in a mere handful of days, that seems near impossible without something to aid him."

"You're right, it doesn't bode well, and Ba'al has come up with a weapon that allows him to easily achieve ground control. It's doubtful that even Kull can stand up to it." That was not good, as she had heard tales of Kull going through entire legions of Jaffa without suffering a casualty. If there was something that could render even the Kull useless and was in Molocs domain, she feared for the future of her people.

"And is there anything you can do about it?" If anyone could do anything then it would be the Tau'ri, they had managed to survive against the whole Goa'uld empire with just one world, if they couldn't then most likely no one could.

"We have something we think might work, and you may be just the right people to give it the best chance of success."

_Anubis's base, Tartarus  
_He had to resit the urge to violently lash out at his surroundings. He had poured almost a century into creating the Kull, and then first the Tau'ri and now Ba'al had created ways to effectively counter them. His only consolation in this case was that Ba'als new creation was to large to fit through the Cappa'ai, though that didn't really seem to matter as Ba'al had enough space lift capacity to render that particular consideration moot. He eventually calmed down, his spies would hopefully provided information on this new weapon, and when they did he could begin creating a counter to it.

In the meantime he would continue on with his own projects. In particular he had finally finished the designing his new Udajeet, and would soon begin going prototyping it, the only problem was configuring the Kull to fly it. Which was still a problem for his 'Angel' Kull, they just seemed to lack any talent for flight. He had considered using Jaffa to pilot them, but he didn't have enough trained Jaffa to even attempt what he wanted to do. So he would have to find a way to get Kull to fly, without meeting the ground within a minute of lifting off. Maybe he could see what Ptah could do about that.

His preparations for taking Tau'ri were coming along smoothly, now he just had to give Ares a few Ha'tak and an Asgard world to attack and the first part of his plan would be set. But first he wanted his Kull 'Angels' to be ready, which they sorely were not at the moment. And he wasn't sure how long that was going to take and every day that he delayed was another day the Tau'ri had to build their cursed ships. Which by the treaty they weren't even supposed to have, though he was hardly surprised that the Asgard didn't seem to be holding up their end of the bargain of keeping their worlds down. They did want to undermine the Goa'uld anyway they could after all. He just wished the rest of the system lords would realize that. Idiots.

_Ba'als Palace, Renvar  
_Ba'al looked over the map in front of him, quite pleased with himself. In just a few short days his forces had managed to capture over a dozen worlds with even more ready to fall. He had been right that the rot in Moloc's domain had been so thick, most places his warriors were going were hardly putting up any resistance. Though there was still the matter of Moloc's army and fleet, the first had been neatly dealt with by Ground Al'Kesh. Though given the limited number he had at the moment he had reserved them for worlds were he expected to meet heavy resistance. Speeders had to suffice for the other worlds.

Still the Ground Al'Kesh had exceeded his expectations, withing minutes of entering the battlefield they all but eliminated the forces opposing them. Even the losses suffered had been far below what he had been expecting. Though he figured part of that had been due to quickly establishing orbital supremacy and atmospheric superiority, seeing as so far most of the losses had been due to airborne craft.

And eve then he had not been expecting it to be so good at eliminating airborne targets, the repeater cannons had proven very effective. Though he supposed that the Tau'ri used something similar for a good reason. Which reminded him that he had no idea how effective it would prove against Tau'ri forces, he suspected casualties would be much higher for his forces in such an occurrence than they had been against Moloc's armies. They seemed quite adept at destroying supposedly indestructible or well protected targets. Though with any luck the repeater cannons would at least give them pause.

And on those, he had managed to attach one to a Death Glider. Though he had to remove both existing cannons to do it, and it now preformed slightly worse than before. He still felt as though it was an improvement over the older design. Though he still hoped to create his own glider from the engines out, he had been focusing on other things. But now maybe he could have some time to just that.

_Area Fifty-One, Earth  
_Dr. Bill Lee entered the conference room deep within area fifty-one, he and several dozen other scientists, engineers and military personnel had been called to this meeting. And after listening to the rumour mill he had a fairly good guess as to what it was going to be about. Honestly he was surprised the Goa'uld had taken this long to actually go ahead and build a battle tank, had it never crossed their minds before now to build something to break through defensive lines. Well either way one of them had rubbed two brain cells together and had built a bunch of them.

He had seen a few pictures of them, they reminded him of world war one tanks with their general appearance. Somewhere in the background a klaxon blared for a few moments before turning off, it seemed they still were having trouble with that IS unit over at bay three. Just what was going on over there, this had been going on for the past few weeks, well nothing he could do about it, so he turned his attention back to the presentation.

A man near the front of the room on a raised platform cleared his throat, gaining the attention of all the scientists present. "May I have your attention please," the various conversations that were still going died down, "thank you. Now most of you have probably heard the rumours going around about the Goa'uld tank, I don't know what you've heard but just so we are all on the same page I'm going to go through what we do know about it. First off it's armed with fie hull mounted and one turret mounted repeating staff cannons. Known defences include armour of unknown strength and a shield estimated at least Al'kesh strength. It has an estimated top land speed in excess of sixty kilometers per hour."

A man standing beside the first one spoke up, "we have gathered you all here to present several ideas that have been put forward and to see what anyone else has to add. First off any we have the armoured vehicle proposals, which are only being considered because the work has started on the rest of the Daedalus line. We have the M3, VK and FV proposals, first up is the M3 proposal."

Another man stepped up to the platform as a screen dropped behind the platform, with the overhead projector activating. "The M3 prototype takes our current heavy plasma cannon and puts it on a chassis in a fixed mount, to make room for crew and other things the weapon was shifted to the right side of the vehicle. A secondary turret on top provides close in protection." The image of the vehicle that came down on the screen reminded him of another M3.

He heard several people talking about it before someone shouted out, "Next!" The man who had done the presentation quickly left the stage.

Next up was another man who he didn't recognize, while the image behind the platform now displayed something he would actually consider sending into combat. "Behind me is our concept for the VK152.01 medium tank. Based of the Leopard 2 chassis, it incorporates the one-hundred and fifty two millimeter rail-cannon, on an updated chassis, which incorporates trinium-carbon armour. Driven by a triplet of naquadah reactors, it uses electric motors for propulsion. We are currently looking into ways to include a shield into the design. Currently we are only on the design stages, but we can build a prototype without a shield any time."

"Will the one-fifty-two be effective against Ba'als tanks?"

"At this point we don't know but we have several other turret designs to use different weapons. For instance, we can replace the ammo rack with an additional reactor and swap out the current turret for one housing a plasma cannon. The one-fifty-two was chosen because it can take out an Al'kesh, and Ba'als tanks seem to be using shields on par with those on an Al'kesh. So it seemed to be the logical weapon to start with on our design." There were several other questions before the man stepped down and made way for the next presenter to step up.

Behind them the image shifted to a different tank design, though many of the same features were there, mainly the absurd amount of angled lines in the design. "The FV4036, is a main battle tank based on the chassis of the challenger, while using a turret built around the one-fifty-two millimeter rail-cannon. Several reactors and a light shield generator have been added to the design. Thanks to the removal of the engine there is sufficient room to fit all the necessary components, along with the electric motors for the tracks. The chobram composite armour was replaced with a ceramic composite using trinium." When had that been created, or rather finished, he vaguely remembered Carter telling him about some composite ceramic using trinium for use as ship and IS armour.

From in the crowd, "what is the use of a main battle tank when we have IS units that can often deploy the same weapons?"

"Well for one we have a limited number of IS units, while there is really no limit on how many tanks we can build. And tanks are also much better at pushing through lines than an IS unit is." Many would beg to differ on that, the person who had spoken seemed to share his opinion based on their expression.

After several other questions the projector powered off, and the man who had been on the platform at the beginning returned. "Now while we all can agree that most of these proposals have merit, their deployment will have to wait until we complete the Odyssey, Korolev and Dessaix. And we are still refitting construction bays for the Sung Tzu, Bismark, Apollo, Moreal, Resolution and Musashi. And while our refitted Ha'taks could be modified, they are hardly ideal for that role." Ha'taks weren't suited to any role.

"Now, we have yet to test our weapons against Ba'als tanks, we are currently hoping the one-fifty-two works. But we are also here to day to see if anyone else has any projects that they are working on that they think could be of use." After that everyone tried to make themselves heard over everyone else.

_Orbit, Scarvok four, Ida Galaxy  
_The fourth world out from the star named Scarvok by the Asgard held little in the way of raw resources, that couldn't be found in systems much closer to inhabited planets. It seemed however that the replicators had decided that it would be an ideal place to use for mining. And several other purposes as Thor could not begin to divine the use of several of the structures they had created. It was something to look at later, right know they had to be destroyed. Permanently.

The spinally mounted rail-cannons on the O'Neill fired sending their massive rounds hurtling towards the structures at a large fraction of the speed light. While the replicators had proven extremely adaptable over the course of the conflict, it seemed that even they couldn't move past their basic building blocks. The slugs impacted, scattering the replicator blocks over the nearby space.

While the first salvo had destroyed the majority of the replicator structures, but he didn't have enough ships to have hit them all at once. The remaining structures began rearranging themselves to engage his fleet, most of the remaining structures rearranged themselves into ships and began accelerating towards his fleet. A second salvo dealt with most of those ships, without any shields the block ships were easy prey for the kinetic weapons.

He was still waiting for the day when the replicators built a shield generator into the mass of replicator blocks that they used as ships, then this war would become difficult once again. Until then he was simply content to push his advantage for everything it was worth. The replicators had countered attacked before, but the O'Neills of the Asgard fleet had countered them.

Some of the replicator ships survived the second salvo and closed in on the Asgard ships, kinetic point defence systems lashed out racking the outer layer of blocks off the lead ships. The small shards of metal were of little threat to an O'Neills shields unless used in massive quantities. They were however very effective at breaking up small replicator block constructs. The small attack pods that were launched were broken up long before they could reach the shields of any of the Asgard ships.

It was somewhat telling to the effectiveness of kinetics that the Asgard ships had yet to use their plasma based weapons, there simply wasn't a point. Though if they did encounter any ships using shields the plasma cannons would prove effective.

A third salvo from the spinal mounts blew apart all but a handful of the remaining ships, which were quickly torn apart by point defence fire. The Asgard ships pushed forwards, point defence systems breaking up any clump of replicator blocks, maintaining a tight formation the small clumps proved easy to deal with. Since the O'Neills introduction, a few dozen had been lost, mainly due to being isolated from support, he would not let that happen here. The handful of remaining structures had begun reforming into ships, but it was to late as a fourth salvo tore through them scattering the replicator blocks they were made of.

The Asgard flotilla moved in a began sweeping the area for replicator block clumps, this but the first battle for control of this system. Already replicator ships from elsewhere in the system were heading towards his ships, this looked to be a long fight.

A/N Made some changes, nothing major, next up Unstoppable force meets Unstoppable force.


End file.
